Loophole
by Artemis J. Halk
Summary: Fae can only come to the Aboveworld if they've been wished for. But, Jareth would be a very poor Goblin King if he didn't know how to exploit loopholes in the wishes of humans.
1. Chapter 1

I don't know what to say about this. I was reading the Return to Labyrinth book, where Jareth posed as Toby's guidance councilor, and I was just thinking "Gee, if he can come Aboveworld to talk to Toby, what else can he do? He probably goes to talk to Sarah, and somehow convinces her to be in a relationship with him because he's totally not Jareth the Goblin King."

Except that Return to Labyrinth sort of stinks, and most people haven't even read it anyway. So, here's something that's only slightly related to Return to Labyrinth.

But I'm still sticking to RTL canon and Sarah's step-mom is named Irene.

This has not been proof read, so if you spot any sort of grammatical error, please let me know!

Thanks to KieraPSI for the grammatical help!

* * *

"I don't know," Sarah said with a massive sigh before she took a sip of her cocktail. "I talk to whiny teenagers who think that they're all the next Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet all day long, and then I come home and I sit in front of the TV. I'm just… lonely, I guess."

"What you need is a good roll in the hay!" Sarah's best friend, Ashley said.

"Ash, I love you, but the last thing that I need on my plate right now is the emotional fall-out from having meaningless sex with a complete stranger that I picked up at a bar," Sarah said with a dour look.

"Just thing about it, Sarah!" Ashely exclaimed before she downed the rest of her drink in one swallow. She slammed her glass down onto the table, put her arm around Sarah's shoulders, and subtly pointed towards an exceptionally muscular and good-looking man who was a few seats away at the bar. "You could have your legs wrapped around that fine piece of… Whoa." A man who was just as muscular and good-looking walked up to the first and the two of them passionately kissed and embraced. "Um, never mind then. Why did you want to come to this place? I think it might be a gay bar."

"I don't know. I've never been here before, and you know how close it is to my apartment," Sarah said.

"Well, I still think that the answer to your problems would be to wrap your legs around some guy's waist and let him completely rock your world," Ashley said as she gathered her purse to leave the bar.

"And I completely disagree with you!" Sarah protested before she tipped back her glass to finish the last of her drink. Then, she grabbed her own purse and followed her red-headed friend from the bar. She'd been feeling a bit buzzed, but the cool air of the mid-October night helped to clear her head a little.

"Okay, fine," Ashley said once they'd crossed the parking lot and started to head for Sarah's apartment. "Since you're the leading expert in Sarahology, what do you want?"

Sarah was silent for a long while as they walked down the cracked sidewalk of urban New York. "I just wish that I could find the one, you know?"

"Oh, Sarah," Ashley said with a sigh. "You're such a hopeless romantic."

* * *

In the Underground, in Jareth's throne room, the Goblin King himself sat upon his throne. The room was lit only by the light of the moon as it streamed through the stained glass windows, and it was otherwise silent except for the tinny voices that came from the crystal Jareth held in his hand.

"Since you're the leading expert in Sarahology, what do you want?" her friend, Ashley asked.

Jareth's favorite activity was to watch every single thing that Sarah had done in the past ten years since she had defeated him and his Labyrinth. He was waiting for a moment, a single slip of the tongue from the girl-turned-woman, that would give him the opportunity to go back to her once again.

Much to his chagrin, however, she had not uttered the single, four-letter word that would bring him back to her side since that night, ten years ago. When Jareth was exceptionally frustrated by Sarah's actions, he sometimes wondered if she even was aware of the existence of the word.

But, there was one thing that greatly pleased the Goblin King, and that was Sarah's lack of a romantic life. He'd watched in complete anguish as she'd gone out on a handful of dates during her time at university, but he also realized that she never really seemed to go out on more than three dates with any one guy. But, after she'd graduated and accepted a teaching position at a local high school, the only time she went out was either with her colleagues from the school, or with her friend from university, the overly obnoxious Ashely.

Jareth's blood had boiled when Ashley had, not only encouraged Sarah to have a casual sexual encounter with a stranger, but had suggested the man that Sarah should have it with; he'd been more than pleased to see the other man show up to put the kibosh on Ashley's idea.

But then… "I just wish that I could find the one, you know?" Sarah said after a very long stretch of silence.

Jareth's heart practically lept out of his chest at what she said. Jareth had to go back and hear the words again, just to make sure that she really said what he thought she said.

A giant grin crept onto the Goblin King's face as the words played over and over from the crystal. "Precious, I can work with that," he said softly.

* * *

It was a dreary, wet, Monday morning, and Sarah was running late. She tried to blame her lateness on her hangover from Saturday morning, but in actuality, she just hadn't felt like getting up that morning. There was something off about how she felt, and for some reason, a massive sense of dread, even though she knew that there was no logical explanation for why she felt that way.

She ran out of her apartment, and down the hall to the elevator, where she nervously pressed the down button in beat with the opening song that the kids were working on for the upcoming musical. "Finally," she muttered under her breath when the elevator gave a slight ding. A second later, the doors slid open, and Sarah cursed under her breath.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said a soft, masculine, British voice from behind the massive red sofa that took up most of the elevator.

"No, no, it's alright," Sarah told the unknown voice. "I enjoy walking down five flights of stairs when I'm running late for work." The doors to the elevator started to slide closed, but a slender hand shot out and held them open. A moment later, the man adjusted the sofa barely enough for Sarah to get a glimpse of him.

"Please, squeeze in. After all, it would not be polite of me to be the sole cause of one of my new neighbors being late to work," he said. Sarah squeezed into the elevator, and pressed the L button before she ducked under the sofa to allow the doors to close. The man in question had short, choppy blond hair and was dressed in a worn The Who shirt and faded blue jeans. But his most striking feature were his odd, mismatched eyes. Sarah stared blankly at the man for several seconds.

"Do I know you?" Sarah finally asked.

"I don't believe so, no," the man said. He held out his hand. "Jared Garfield, at your service."

"Sarah Williams." They shook hands just as the elevator came to a stop. "Thanks for inconveniencing yourself to let me down faster. I'll… see you around, alright?" Sarah squeezed herself out from under the sofa once again and quickly left the elevator. She paused for a second as the doors slid closed and the elevator indicator light moved from the down to up. She looked at the brushed metal doors with an air of confusion. "Nah," she said as she shook her head and hurried from the lobby of the apartment building.

* * *

The doors of the elevator were just about to close when somebody shouted, "Hold the lift, please!" Sarah quickly slammed her hand onto the door open button and a man carrying two large boxes ran in. "So sorry and thank you," the man said. He set his boxes down on the ground— it was Jared. "Oh, hello. It's Ms. Williams, isn't it?"

"Um, yeah," Sarah said with a tired but sincere smile. "What floor?"

"Seven, please." The fifth floor button was already pressed, and Sarah pressed the seventh one as well.

"Do you need any help with those?"

"That would be greatly appreciated, Ms. Williams," Jareth said with a friendly smile.

"Sarah, please."

"Yes, of course."

"Where did you move here from?"

"London, actually."

"I see. That would certainly explain the accent," Sarah said with a slight laugh.

"Yes, I believe that it would," Jared agreed with a cheerful grin. The elevator came to a stop at the fifth floor, and the doors slid open, but Sarah pressed the close door button. After a moment, the elevator started to move again.

"Did you move here for work?"

"Work, yes. I came to New York for a change of surroundings while I try to work on my latest novel," Jared explained.

"Oh? You're a writer? Anything that I might have heard of?"

"I'm not exactly topping the New York Time's Best Seller List, if that's what you're asking."

The elevator was filled with awkward silence. Sarah watched as the lights switched from six to seven, and then the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened with a slight ding. "Ah, if you could please just grab the top box," Jared said. Sarah grabbed it— it wasn't all that heavy— and moved aside to follow Jared from the elevator. They walked in silence down the dark hall before Jared paused outside of unit number 704. He fished a couple of keys out from his pocket and balanced the box he was carrying on his hip as he unlocked and opened the door.

"Where do you want this?" Sarah asked as she followed Jared inside. The red sofa that Jared had been transporting in the elevator was the only piece of furniture in the living room, but there were boxes stacked up nearly as high as Sarah was tall in the corners of the room.

"Ah, right there's fine," Jared said with a vague wave of his hand. He set the box he was carrying down at the edge of the sofa, and Sarah stacked hers carefully on top.

"Looks like you're just about finished," Sarah said as she looked around the room.

"Yes. These were the last two," Jared agreed with a slight nod. "You wouldn't happen to want to go to dinner with me, would you? Since I am new here, I don't have the first clue where to even begin to look for food."

"Um… I… I guess," Sarah said a bit nervously. Jared offered her a slow and somewhat sensual smile.

"Fantastic," he said. "I trust your judgment on food completely." Sarah gave him an odd look before she turned around and started to leave Jared's apartment.

"Are you coming or not?" she said once she was out in the hall. Jared hurried after her, paused to lock up his apartment again, before they went down to the elevator.

"Since I've already told you what I do for a living, how about you tell me where you were running off to in such a rush this morning?" Jared asked.

"Oh, work," Sarah said. "I work at the nearby high school, PS 153."

"Teaching?" Jared asked with that same, overly-sensual smile as before.

"Um, yes. Drama."

"I would quote some Shakespeare, but I have a feeling that you only wish that your students were good enough for that," Jared said with a teasing smirk.

"Hah, yes," Sarah agreed rather bitterly. "But we are getting ready to put on a musical in about a month."

"Oh? Anything good?"

"Something that the choir teacher and I wrote in our spare time," Sarah explained. "It's nothing that you'd likely ever see on Broadway, but it's decent enough for the theater group."

"Well, I do enjoy supporting the local arts, so I would be pleased to hear your rag-tag group of misfit actors-slash-singers," Jared said.

"I… Alright." Sarah looked up at Jared. "But, I wouldn't mind hearing some Shakespeare anyway."

"As the lady wishes," Jared said. He cleared his throat before he began. "To be or not to be— that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of-" (1) Jared broke off when the elevator doors slid open. "Ah, well, you know how it goes anyway," Jared said as he offered Sarah an apologetic smile as they stepped out from the elevator. "It's such a pleasant evening, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yeah, but it's getting a little bit too cold for my tastes," Sarah said.

"We could go back for you to grab a jacket?" Jared proposed.

"Ah, no. I'll be alright," Sarah said. "It's just around the corner." They walked in silence for a couple of minutes before Sarah gestured to a small Japanese restaurant under some older apartment buildings.

"I would not have pictured you for a lover of sushi and sashimi, Sarah," Jared said evenly.

"Not a lot, because it's expensive, but it's so close to the building," Sarah explained. Jared opened the door for Sarah, and they walked into the restaurant to a chorus of "Irasshaimasei!" from the staff.

"Sarah-san, you have brought a date?" a balding, middle-aged man asked from behind the counter.

"Um, n-no, not really," Sarah said nervously as she pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. Jared grabbed two laminated menus before he slid into the closest booth. Sarah slid in opposite him a moment later, and accepted the menu that Jared offered her.

They were silent as Jared looked over the menu. A waitress came to take their drink orders, and then Jared put his menu down to look at the woman sitting across the table from him. Sarah was watching the chefs prepare the food of the other customers behind the counter, but when she sensed Jared's gaze, she turned her head slowly, and offered him a slightly bewildered look. A moment later, she schooled her features into a pleasant smile.

"So, you're a writer," Sarah said casually.

"Yes, I am," Jared agreed with a slight smile.

"What do you write about?" Sarah asked as the waitress came back with their drinks. The waitress took their orders before she left again.

"I think that I write about what a lot of people write about: the human condition. The deeply dark and mysteries of the human psyche, and how it all connects to the way that we see the world."

"That sounds like a psychology textbook," Sarah said blankly.

"Maybe, but you'd be surprised how much meaning that some author's can put into a simple blue dress."

"Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe," Sarah said with an absent shrug.

"That is also true, but you must remember, my dear: 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe.'" (2)

"My French is a bit rusty, but did you say 'this is not a pipe'?" Sarah asked.

"Yes. From the René Magritte, representing…"

"Yeah, yeah. I know the painting," Sarah said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "But what about the authors who did not intend for that meaning? For example, many people seem to be under the impression that Frank Baum's works were about the Great Depression, which I find to be amazing, considering that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published a good 30 years before the depression hit."

"Of course, you also have to understand that people see the things that they want— and need— to see in things. The movie adaptation came out in 1939, which was in the tail-end of the depression. People saw what they wanted to see, because it made them feel better. But, you will also note that Mr. Baum neither confirmed nor denied the fact that he based the Yellow Brick Road upon the gold standard."

"You know what, I don't understand why people feel the need to psychoanalyze everything," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. "Why can't people just read 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' and go 'gee, I want to go skipping through Oz just like Dorthy!' and not care about the things that either Mr. Baum might have intended as a metaphor, and how society today might analyze his writing?" She took a sip of her soda and carefully regarded Jared over the top of her cup. "But anyway, if I was to go to a library, what section would I find your novels under? And existential mind-fuck is not a section in the library."

"I mainly write in the fantasy genre," Jared said casually. "I tried to get into the romance genre, but I found that it was a much more cut-throat section than the one that I was used to. Which, of course, lead to my decision that my female main characters did not need men to dictate their lives." Jared paused for a moment. "That's not to say, of course, that my female leads were simpering damsels in distress who couldn't even lift a sword in order to so much as save themselves, but I think that after my exceptionally brief foray into the romance genre, my female characters have become even stronger."

"Well, I do love fantasy novels," Sarah said with a small smile. "When I was younger, I would-"

"Sorry it took so long! Here's your orders!" the waitress exclaimed as she slid the dishes in front of Jared and Sarah. "Is there anything else I can bring for you?"

"This looks amazing, thank you," Jared said as he grabbed a package of disposable chopsticks that the waitress had set down on the table along with their food. The waitress smiled at them and quickly left. They busied themselves with soy sauce, napkins, and chopsticks before they dug into their food. "I'm sorry, you were saying about when you were a girl?" Jared asked after a couple bites of food.

Sarah paused for a moment, and chewed slowly as she tried to remember what they'd been talking about before. "Oh, right! When I was younger, I used to go to the park that we lived by and act out my favorite scenes from my favorite fantasy novels."

Jared gave her a giant grin. "That sounds adorable. Did you wear costumes, too?"

"Ah, I shouldn't have told you that," Sarah said as her face turned bright red.

"Why ever not?" Jared asked smoothly with a cocky grin.

"Because now you're just going to tease me about it whenever you see me," Sarah said as she buried her face in her hands in shame.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I was a complete hellion in my youth. I'd torment people just for the sake of watching them squirm."

"I was such an entitled brat when I was younger," Sarah said evenly as she picked up her chopsticks once again. "Although, I think that some of that might have been because my mother walked out on me and my dad when I was little."

"Well, you don't come off as being overly entitled now, so you must have figured out that nobody liked you when you acted bratty and grew up," Jared said.

"Yeah. I… I underwent a massive, life-changing moment when I was 15," Sarah said, her voice low.

"Oh?" Jared asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I… I don't want to talk about it," Sarah said quickly, and then stuffed a massive slice of potato into her mouth.

"Well, I think that the world would be a more disturbing place if everybody remained the same person that they were in high school," Jared said simply after a while. Sarah only nodded.

Jared changed the subject to talk about movies that they'd seen, books that they'd read, TV shows that they'd watched, and they passed the rest of their meal that way. "Dinner is on me," Jared said when the waitress delivered their bill.

"Um, no, it's okay," Sarah said quickly.

"No, really. You helped me move into my apartment."

"I carried a single box from the elevator to your apartment," Sarah argued. "You literally moved everything else while I was at work." Sarah quickly slid her credit card into the bill folder and handed it to the waitress before Jared could pull out his wallet.

"You win this round, Ms. Williams, but I will repay you some other time," Jared said smoothly; a coy smile played around his lips. Sarah flushed a little and looked down at the table. She absently toyed with the wrapper for the disposable chopsticks until the waitress brought the bill folder back.

After Sarah signed the receipt, she slid from the booth, and Jared got up and followed her from the restaurant. "Wow, would you look at that?" Jared whispered as he looked up at the night sky. Sarah looked up at the darkening sky, which was already alight with thousands of stars.

"Oh, right. There's a lot of light pollution in London, isn't there?"

"You'd be surprised how many stars you can see where I lived…" Jared said. He looked back down to Sarah and offered her a smile that she had trouble reading. Then, she shivered violently.

"Well, let's stop stargazing and hurry back to the apartment!" she said. "It's too cold!"

"I offered to let you go back to get your jacket, but you said no," Jared said with a slight laugh as he hurried after Sarah, who was doing a frenzied half-run.

"I didn't think it would be this cold after we finished dinner!" Sarah said with a laugh. They ran around the corner and dashed into the lobby of the apartment building. Sarah threw back her head and laughed; her cheeks and nose were red from the cold, and there was a youthful sparkle in her eyes. "I haven't had this much fun while sober in a long time!" she laughed as Jared called the elevator. The doors opened at once, and they got in.

"I find that exceptionally hard to believe," Jared said with a large smile. "You are an exceptionally delightful companion, Ms. Williams. …Sarah." The laughter faded from Sarah's face as she looked up at Jared; it was such an intense glare, full of longing and desire.

"Jared, I…" Sarah whispered, but trailed off as Jared took a step closer to her. She took an uneasy step back, and then another until her back hit the wall of the elevator. Jared then leaned over and pressed his lips to Sarah's in a passionate, demanding kiss. "S-stop!" Sarah exclaimed as she pushed at Jared's chest. He only pulled his face further away from Sarah's, but didn't back away from her. "Listen, I'm sorry if I somehow lead you on tonight, but I'm not interested in having some meaningless fling."

"I'm not either, but I respect your personal boundaries," Jared said evenly. He stepped away from Sarah, who visibly relaxed a little bit more once he had retreated to the other side of the elevator. She swallowed hard, and her eyes never left her feet until the elevator came to a stop at the fifth floor.

"I'm sorry have a nice night," Sarah said in a rush as she quickly ran out from the elevator without a backwards glance.

* * *

Once the elevator started to move again, Jareth let out a slow laugh and ran a hand through his newly shortened hair. "I know that I probably just took a massive leap back to square one, but it was more than worth it to finally have the kiss that I should have stolen from her ten years ago."

* * *

1) From Shakespeare's Hamlet

2) "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" translates to "This is not a pipe", and it's taken from a famous painting entitled "The Treachery of Images". It means that a painting of a pipe is not literally a pipe, but in the reference that Jared uses the phrase, he means that sometimes a pipe can be a metaphor.

I would have put the link to the painting's wikipedia page, but this website still does not like URLs. If you really want to know more about it, I think that you are all perfectly capable of googling something.


	2. Chapter 2

This has not been proof read, and I'd really appreciate it if anybody could tell me any grammatical errors that I might have made. I'm only human after all.

* * *

The next morning, Jared hurried downstairs to Sarah's unit with two cups of coffee in hand. He shifted both mugs carefully to his left hand and knocked on her door.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Knocked again.

"Are you looking for Sarah?" an elderly lady asked Jared as she poked her head out from her apartment next to Sarah's.

"Yes, actually. I am."

"You'd have to get up pretty early in order to catch her most week-days," the woman explained. "She works at a school, you know, and has to get in early in order to prepare her lesson plans and such."

"Yes, of course," Jared agreed. "I was just unaware of how early that she left."

"I see." The woman adjusted her thick glasses and regarded Jared closely.

"Are you her boyfriend?"

"Yes."

"That is wonderful! I've known Sarah for years, and she's never shown much interest in dating. I tell her, honey, you should find a nice young man to settle down with, and then you can quit teaching!"

"Sarah loves teaching," Jared said, a bit argumentatively.

"You really think that she enjoys waking up at 5 AM to get to school by 7, only to spend her entire day around bratty young adults who have no respect for her, only to come home completely exhausted and annoyed at the world in general that produced such children?" the woman asked. Jared gave her a completely baffled look.

"It's not the obnoxious children nor the tedious hours that keeps Sarah working at the school year after year, you know," Jared said. "It's those few children that she sees that spark of intelligence, creativity in… that Sarah sees a reflection of herself at her age. Before realities became too harsh for her." The woman offered Jared a slow, knowing smile.

"It seems like it would be such a waste to waste that coffee when you went to all of that trouble to make it for Sarah," she said. "Why don't you come in for a spell?"

"Alright," Jared agreed as he stepped closer to her apartment.

* * *

Sarah clamped the bag of fast food that she'd picked up on her way home and dug her keys out from her pocket. "Oh, Sarah dear?" Mrs. Kelley said as she poked her head out from her apartment door.

"Yeah?" Sarah said around a mouthful of paper bag.

"That boyfriend of yours came looking for you maybe half an hour after you left this morning," the old woman said.

Sarah shoved her house key into the lock, took the bag out from her mouth, and gave Mrs. Kelley a confused look. "Boyfriend?"

"Yes. Mr. Tall, blond, and British who moved into a unit upstairs," Mrs. Kelley explained. Sarah heaved an annoyed sigh.

"I don't know what he told you, but he's not my boyfriend," Sarah protested. She quickly unlocked her door.

"That's not what he said. He seemed to know an awful lot about you, dear. He brought you coffee, the exact way that you like it. I hate to see good coffee go to waste, so I invited him in to drink it with me, and we talked for about two hours."

"Well, I don't know what you two talked about for such a long time, but I only just met the man yesterday," Sarah said as she opened her door.

"Oh? Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"It's only just that he seemed to know so much about you." Mrs. Kelley stepped away from her door and walked closer to Sarah. "He knew about why you keep teaching, even when you hate it," she whispered, as if it was the greatest secret in the world.

"I told him about my job and about my passion for play-acting when I was younger," Sarah said with an absent sniff. "Anybody could have pieced that together."

"Well, he sure seemed exceptionally passionate to talk about you."

"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't encourage him, Mrs. Kelley. And I'm not in." Sarah went into her apartment and closed the door with a firm snap. She heaved another annoyed sigh and shook her head as she locked the door back up and went into the kitchen to get her dinner out from the take-out bag. Sarah walked over to the chair by the window, which had the tiniest view of the street below, picked up the novel that she'd been slowly making her way through, and started in on her burger as she flipped to where she'd left off.

She'd barely taken one bite when she spotted a lone figure walking down the sidewalk. Sarah frown— it was Jared. She'd shown him to the Japanese restaurant because she knew what it was like to not know the places around her new home, and she'd felt almost obligated to dine with him. And his company hadn't been completely unpleasant.

But then… in the elevator… Sarah groaned out loud and buried her head in her book in frustration. One meal together and an awkward kiss in the elevator, and the guy was introducing himself to the other occupants in the apartment building as her boyfriend? The guy had some serious boundary issues.

On one hand, she should probably go and tell him that that sort of behavior was completely unacceptable, borderline creepy meets restraining order.

On the other, Sarah did not want to have to face him after last night, and figured that maybe if she ignored him, he'd eventually get the message.

Just as she'd come to the decision to ignore him, somebody knocked softly on her door. She jumped a little, but remained perfectly still and silent in the hopes of giving off the impression that nobody was home.

"Dear? Are you still looking for Sarah?" Sarah heard Mrs. Kelley ask.

"Yes." There was no mistaking that deep, British voice.

"Well, you just missed her! She came by long enough to grab her coat before she left again!" Bless Mrs. Kelley. Sarah didn't even have to give any reason to her elderly neighbor and she was more than willing to lie for Sarah.

"I see." There was a beat of silence. "Will you make sure that she gets this the next time you see her?"

"Yes, of course dear."

"Thank you. Have a nice evening, Mrs. Kelley."

"You, too, dear." Sarah watched as a shadow passed in front of her door, and then she took a giant bite of her burger once it had passed. Then, she put her book face-down on the arm of the chair and went into the kitchen to grab a napkin from the take-out bag. She'd just wiped the mustard off her face when somebody knocked on her door.

"Sarah? It's Mrs. Kelley. Jared is gone," the old woman said on the other side of the door. Sarah went to open it, and ushered her neighbor inside. "He left this with me to give to you." She offered Sarah a single red rose with a note tied around the stem with yellow ribbon.

Sarah silently accepted the flower, and reached over to flip the light on so that she could read the note.

Sarah,

I do apologize if I have made you uncomfortable, and I hope that you can forgive me. I much enjoyed your company last night, and I hope that you'll agree to see me again.

—Jared

"Ooh, I do hope that you'll forgive him for whatever he did, Sarah dear!" Mrs. Kelley exclaimed as Sarah finished reading the note. "He's such a nice young man, and so good looking! Ooh, if I were only 60 years younger!"

"Yes, but what about Mr. Kelley?" Sarah asked. The man had died about ten years ago, which meant that Sarah had never met him. But she still felt as if she had, because of how often that her neighbor talked about the love of her life.

"I love Arthur, and I'll continue to love him until the day that I die, but he was not British nor a published author!" Mrs. Kelley said. "Here, dear. He gave me something. It's in my apartment." Sarah put the flower down on the table where she put all of her mail, and followed her neighbor over to her apartment. There, the elderly woman went over to her coffee table and picked up a book, which she then presented to the younger woman. "Jared told me that it was his best-selling novel. Of course, when he gave it to me, he reassured me that just because it was the best-selling of his books doesn't necessarily mean anything in comparison to other people's novels."

"Yes, he told me that he wasn't a best-selling author," Sarah said as she looked at the cover art. It was simple, a girl with a sword in her hands who stood before a dark forest while a white owl flew over her head. The swirling gold lettering at the top said "The Princess's Lament" and then it said Jared Garfield at the bottom. "Do you mind if I borrow this? I'll get it back to you as soon as possible."

"Of course not, dear. I wouldn't have shown it to you if I didn't intend for you to read it, after all. You can read it and let me know if it'll be worth the strain on my old eyes." Mrs. Kelley patted Sarah's hand fondly.

"Well, thanks for the book, Mrs. Kelley. I won't keep you up any later," Sarah said. She turned around and went back to her own apartment, where she quickly finished her dinner before she curled up on her bed and started to read "The Princess's Lament".

* * *

Although it had been a bit tedious to talk to Sarah's elderly neighbor, who was exceptionally hard of hearing and kept grabbing his ass, Jared had considered it to be a bit of an information gathering mission. After all, who would know Sarah's schedule better than Sarah's busy-body, elderly neighbor?

So that was why Jared knocked on Sarah's door promptly at 6 AM the next morning, again, with two cups of coffee balanced in his left hand. A moment later, he was rewarded by the rough sound of the deadlock sliding back and the door opened a crack. "Oh. It's you." From what little Jared could see of her, she was dressed in a dressing robe, and her hair was rather bedraggled. Had he woken her?

"Good morning to you, too, my dear," Jared said. "I brought you coffee." The door closed, and he heard Sarah undo the chain before she opened the door fully.

"Damn right for you to bring me coffee," Sarah said as Jared handed over one of the cups. "After all, I spent all last night reading your stupid novel."

"My novel?" Jared asked with an air of false innocence.

"Yes, your novel!" Sarah hissed as she motioned towards the sofa, where Jared saw "The Princess's Lament" lying face-down on the arm of the sofa. "I kept telling myself that I needed to put it down and get some sleep, but every single god-damned chapter was so evilly ended that I would promise myself that I would go to bed after the next chapter. And before I knew it, it was 4 AM, and I hadn't slept a god-damned wink." She took a long swallow from the coffee mug Jared had given her. "Mm, you are magic."

"I like to think so, yes," Jared agreed with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"Listen, I promise that we will talk, but I'm running late," Sarah said as she put the coffee cup down on her counter. She ushered him out of her apartment.

"But what about my mug?"

"I'll return it!" Sarah insisted before she shut the door in Jared's face. She leaned against the door for a moment and inhaled slowly before she released her breath in a giant whoosh.

Five minutes later found Sarah leaving the apartment building, and running to catch the next bus before it left. As she sat down in an empty seat and hugged her backpack to her chest, she pondered Jared. It was one thing for him to guess about her motives for staying in the teaching profession, but it was another thing completely for him to have randomly guessed how she liked her coffee: two sugars with just the barest hint of nutmeg and cinnamon.

Sarah still couldn't get over the feeling that she'd met Jared somewhere before. He claimed that they'd never met, but she wasn't so sure about it. And when she'd read "The Princess's Lament", she couldn't help but feel as if she already knew the story. Which was odd, because she probably would have remembered reading such an amazing book. Or if she'd seen the plot on TV, in a movie, or even on stage before. Because it was such a memorable plot.

After her conversation about metaphors and Jared's own admission about what he wrote about, Sarah had been expecting something that was just so completely dripping in metaphors, that finding them would have been like shooting fish in a barrel. However, if Jared had intended for the book to be some sort of bigger picture message, it was completely lost in Sarah.

Although, the longer she thought about it, the less the title made sense. Although the novel was mainly told from the point of view of Sally, Sarah got the impression that a better title for the book should have been "The King's Lament". He was mainly painted as the antagonist, the one who stole Sally from her bed and forced her to march thousands of miles to his kingdom because he was madly in love with her, but at the same time, Sarah found it difficult to actually call him the bad guy. She seriously felt sorry for him, especially at the end when Sally rejected his love.

His novel would be the first topic of conversation after Sarah got home from work.

* * *

Of course, what she hadn't considered was that he would be out when she got back to the apartment building. She hadn't even stopped at her apartment to drop off her bag, and had taken the elevator straight to the seventh floor.

As Sarah pondered this dilemma, she remembered that she'd seen Jared coming back from somewhere a little bit after she'd come home last night. Maybe he actually did have a day-job, after all.

Sarah had just taken her bag off from her back and was searching for a scrap of paper and a writing utensil when the elevator dinged and Jared stepped out into the hall. Sarah straightened up as Jared walked closer to her. "Good evening, Sarah," he said once they were only a few feet away. "I was not expecting to see you outside my apartment."

"I was looking for you," Sarah explained. "I just got home. Well, from work." She pushed her hair away from her face and offered him a hesitant smile.

"I apologize that I was out when you returned," Jared said casually.

"No, you probably have a job or something that you need to go to," Sarah said quickly.

"I do not; I was simply exploring the neighborhood a little." Upon Sarah's confused look, Jared went on. "To see what there is to see here. After all, I cannot always rely upon the word of a pretty woman that I met in the lift to tell me where the green grocers is, the local cinema, and any other restaurants."

"Oh, right," Sarah said absently. She shifted from foot to foot.

"Would you like to accompany me to one of the restaurants I discovered?" Jared offered. "You've probably been there before, but I have not, though I would like to try."

"Yes, alright," Sarah agreed. "Just let me go down to my apartment real quick and put my bag down and grab a jacket."

"Of course." Jared followed Sarah downstairs and into her apartment.

"See? There's your mug over there and it's perfectly unharmed," Sarah said with a dismissive wave of her hand towards the kitchen sink; Jared mug sat in it with coffee dregs at the bottom and a slight lipstick print around the rim. Sarah vanished into her room for a moment and then came out with a jacket and a purse.

"You couldn't even rinse it out?" Jared asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. She tugged Jared away from her sink and pushed him out the door. "In the book, King George was not intended to be the bad guy, was he?" Sarah asked as they got onto the elevator.

"I know it's been about ten years since I wrote 'Princess's Lament', but could you refresh my memory? I can't seem to recall ever having written that George was the bad guy."

"You didn't, but the way that George plucked Sally out from her bed into the middle of a forest, and the general way that Sally thought of him for most of the book sort of indicated that he was the bad guy."

"Yes, but after Sally reached his castle…?"

"He sent her back home," Sarah said slowly. "Which brings me to another point of discussion: why did you name the book 'Princess's Lament'? It seemed to me that George was more lamenting than Sally ever did." Jared looked a little startled, like he had never honestly considered what Sarah had just said.

"You don't think that Sally was upset because she was put down into the middle of a forest and instructed to go to George?" Jared asked.

"Upset, yes. I think that anybody could be," Sarah said as the doors slid open and they walked through the lobby and outside. There, Jared guided Sarah by her elbow down the sidewalk. "But I don't think that she was exceptionally grief-stricken, however. Nobody she met along the way actually died. Sally seemed more annoyed than sad. George, however…"

Instead of an answer, Jared only offered Sarah a slow, coy smile. It was the knowing smile of a math teacher who knew the answer to an exceptionally difficult smile, but refused to divulge the final answer to his students. And it frustrated Sarah to no end to be so tantalizingly close to the answers she wanted about Jared's book, but yet so horribly far away.

"Sally might not have said it about George, but I'm going to say it about you: You are evil," Sarah said with a slight pout.

"Ah, but what kind of writer just tells the readers what he meant?" Jared asked with the same smile on his face. "Ah, here we are. I have not yet tried American pizza, and I think that I would like to."

"At this place?" Sarah asked with a disbelieving look.

"Yes. What's wrong with it?"

"Fine, but just to let you know, this is not the only pizza place in New York," she said. Jared gave her an odd look before she marched forward and opened the door. "It's your funeral."

* * *

"…So then the guy looks to me before he says that he had no idea how the chicken got into the castle!" Jared finished with a slight laugh.

"Ohmigod," Sarah said with a wheezing half-laugh. "What did the owner do?"

"He banned the guy from even setting foot on the castle grounds, and cooked the offending chicken up for dinner," Jared told her with a wink. They came to Sarah's apartment, and she dug into her purse for her keys.

"You didn't have to walk me to my door, you know," Sarah said absently. "I don't think that I'm going to be attacked in the 10 or so feet it is from the elevator to my door."

"Yes, but how else am I supposed to give you a proper good-night kiss if I don't walk you to your door, my dear?" Jared asked with a teasing smile.

"You're out of your-" Sarah started, but then Jared pressed his lips to hers, much in the same way that he had two nights before in the elevator. The only difference being that instead of Sarah pushing Jared away, she tilted her head up to accept his kiss better and lightly put her hand on his chest. Jared put his own hand on Sarah's waist, and probably would have pushed her up against the door had Mrs. Kelley not opened her door and stepped out into the hall.

Sarah and Jared pulled apart at once, and looked everywhere but at each other or the elderly woman; both of them were red in the face from having been caught.

"Oh, don't mind me, dears!" Mrs. Kelley said with a slight laugh. "I'm only looking for my cat!"

"Um, you don't have a cat," Sarah reminded her neighbor.

"Oh, that's right. Silly me. I'm old and forgetful. Carry on, then!" She vanished back into her apartment. Sarah awkwardly cleared her throat, and turned her back to Jared to unlock her door.

"Thank you for dinner," she said softly. "Good night." She quickly closed the door.

"Wait, what about my mug?" Jared asked. The door opened a second later and Sarah quickly handed Jared back his mug before she shut the door again.

* * *

As he walked down the hall, Jareth ran his nose along the rim of the mug and then looked carefully at the delicate pink lip-print along the rim. "I'm definitely pleased with the progress I'm making with her, but I'm more than a little worried about how she seems to have forgotten her journey through my Labyrinth. I gave Mrs. Kelley that specific book of mine on purpose, knowing that the old woman would likely loan it to Sarah sooner or later." Jareth gave another lingering sniff of the mug just as the elevator came to a stop at the seventh floor.

"Sarah, my precious one, what am I going to do with you?"

* * *

Reviews are appreciated. :)


	3. Chapter 3

As before, this has not been proof read, so I'd appreciate any help with grammatical mistakes that I might have made. Once again, thanks so much to KieraPSI for the corrections.

Thank you so much for all of the love and support that everybody has shown for my humble story. I love seeing when I get a new review, a favorite story notification, or a follow notification. :)

* * *

Even though the temperature was well in the 40's when Sarah woke up the next morning, the first thing that she did was to hop into a freezing shower. As she stood, shivering, under the icy spray, she rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand in order to try to remove the images that had already been burned into her mind.

Sarah was no stranger to sexual encounters; like most young women, she'd had her share of them when she'd gone away to college. So why did one little wet dream leave her feeling so jarred?

It's the subject, a voice whispered to her. Jared. Jared. Jared.

Like a broken record, Sarah's soft moans from her dream replayed over and over in her mind.

She didn't want to even be thinking about it, let alone to have it on instant replay in her mind.

With an annoyed sigh, Sarah shut off the water, since the cold shower didn't seem to be helping much besides making her shiver. She got out and took her time drying herself, and even went out of her way to use her hair dryer, just to have something to do. She was sad, for once, that it was the weekend, and she didn't have school to distract herself. Then, she went into the kitchen to see what she could cook up for breakfast when somebody knocked on the door.

Sarah sent a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that it wouldn't be Jared. "Heeey, girlfriend," Ashley exclaimed when Sarah opened the door. The red-head held up a bag of take-out, and a holder with two cups of coffee. "You know, it's funny, because I met your neighbor, Mrs. Kelley, down in the lobby, and she just about talked my ear off," Ashley said as she stepped into Sarah's apartment.

"Yeah, she'll do that," Sarah said with a quiet laugh.

"That's not the funny part, though," Ashley said with a glint in her eye. "Mrs. Kelley said that you've gone off and gotten yourself a boyfriend!"

"A-ashley," Sarah stammered, her face red. "It's not like that."

"Sarah, sweetie, we're best friends, and you know that I'm possibly the last person on earth to judge you for getting a designated booty-call guy."

"No!" Sarah protested quickly.

Ashley raised an eyebrow. "Friends with benefits?"

"No!" Sarah said again. "He moved into the building on Monday, and he asked if I'd accompany him to dinner since he didn't know any place around. And then he kissed me in the elevator as we were coming back, and blabbed to Mrs. Kelley the next morning about how he's my boyfriend."

"Are you sure about that? Because that's not what Mrs. Kelley told me," Ashley said dryly.

"I-i…" Sarah stammered out, and was more than a little relieved when somebody else knocked on the door. She didn't even really care that it might be Jared; anything was better than awkwardly trying to explain her relationship with him to her friend.

It was awkward for two reasons: the first being that Sarah had no words for her relationship with Jared. They'd gone out twice, and she wasn't even certain if she wanted anything more from Jared or not.

The second was mostly because the dream was still fresh in Sarah's mind. And every time she thought about Jared, she thought about the dream. The way that he'd touched her all over, made her moan his name over and over… Jared. Jared. Ja…

"Hi!" Sarah exclaimed overly bright as she opened the door to the man in question. Her face, which was already flushed, started to burn. She nervously cleared her throat and brushed her hair out of her eyes.

"Good morning, precious," Jared said with a slow smile. "I didn't want to wake you up too early, but I see now that my fears were for nothing. After all, you need your sleep, since I kept you up all night on Wednesday."

"It's not like that, is it?" Ashley asked a bit sarcastically as she walked up behind Sarah.

"God, Ashley! It's not what you think!" Sarah protested. She threw Jared a death glare as he came into her apartment, and presented her with a cup of coffee. "Jared is an author, and he loaned me one of the novels that he wrote. I ended up staying up all night and reading it. That's all. Nothing more!"

"Oh, wow," Ashley said. "All of this…" She motioned towards Jared. "And you write, too? Tell me, hot stuff, do you have a brother?"

"Ashley!" Sarah groaned, her head buried in her hands in complete mortification.

"I have five," Jared said casually.

"Five!" Ashley exclaimed.

"Yes, but they're all married," Jared went on.

"Aw, that's too bad," Ashley said with a pout, but perked up a second later. "How about cousins? You seem like the kind of guy who's got a lot of cousins. Some of them must be single!"

"I'll just leave you to your breakfast, ladies," Jared said smoothly.

"Aw, don't go on account of me. I've probably bought enough food to last the two of us through lunch!" Ashley said.

"I thank you for your offer, but I have work that I've been avoiding," Jared said smoothly. He then turned and quickly showed himself out from Sarah's apartment. Ashley rounded on her friend as soon as the door had closed behind him.

"Sarah Jennifer Williams!" she exclaimed. "Are you out of your mind? What kind of girl says no to… that!"

"I told you last Friday— I don't do one night stands."

"Sweetie, the way that he came here and brought you coffee tells me that that glorious, fantastic, completely amazing piece of ass is after you for far more than just a solitary roll in the hay."

"I don't know if I-" Sarah started, but broke off when Ashley pressed her hands onto either side of Sarah's cheeks, and gently smooshed her friend's face.

"Sarah," Ashley said with all seriousness. "You were complaining to me last Friday how you wanted to find the one."

"I was a little tipsy, Ash," Sarah protested.

"Yes, but remember Dean, Sarah?"

"You promised me that you would never bring that up, even under threat of torture!" Sarah screamed at her friend. She yanked her head away from Ashley's hands and turned around to the kitchen counter and started to rummage through the bag that Ashley had brought.

"And when you've been drinking, you tend to become overly honest! That has not changed one bit since college!" Ashley said with a laugh. "So when you told me that you were lonely and that you wanted to find the one, I knew that it was really you."

"Shut up and eat a pastry," Sarah said with some venom in her words. She grabbed a danish from the bag and roughly shoved it into Ashley's mouth.

* * *

After Ashley had left, Sarah cleaned up the mess that they'd made of her kitchen. Then, she washed out the mug of coffee that Jared had brought for her, before she ventured up two flights and knocked on his door. There was a slight scrambling sound before Jared opened the door.

"Sarah, come in," he said as he gestured for her to enter. She hadn't seen inside his apartment since Monday, but now, it looked as if he'd been there for months, years even, rather than a week. The floor was scattered with papers, and there were dirty dishes piled up in the sink and on the counter. And not a single box to be seen. "Please, pardon the mess. I've been working very hard on my latest novel recently," Jared said as he scooped up some papers off the sofa.

"Well, that's why you moved to New York, right? To become inspired?" Sarah asked.

"Yes, that's correct," Jared said after a brief pause.

"To be fair, if I wasn't at school for most of the day, my apartment would probably end up looking like this, too," Sarah said as she put the mug on the counter. "Although I'm not quite sure how you managed to make your apartment look so lived in in such a short amount of time."

"It's an art," Jared replied with a cocky grin. Sarah rolled her eyes.

"Well, I won't disturb you any further if you're in the middle of something," Sarah said. "I just wanted to return your mug since you seemed… overly touchy about it the other day."

"It's just a mug," Jared said. Sarah raised an eyebrow at him and was about to comment before she thought better of it and turned on her heel to leave.

"I have papers to grade, anyway," she said.

"I was unaware that drama teachers gave out essay assignments."

"It's a new government mandate that teachers have to incorporate as much math, reading, and writing into their lessons," Sarah said. "It's such a pain, but the principal seems to really take this to heart." Sarah pulled a face. "It's not like my students don't already hate coming to class enough as it is, but then their teacher asks them to write a reflection paper on what acting means to them."

"They're complaining about that? It's not even hard; just write some bullshit about how it makes you feel and turn it in."

"I know, right?!" Sarah exclaimed. "But they're teenagers, and the world is quite literally out to get them. They'll find a way to complain about everything." Another roll of her eyes.

"You could always come up here? Plenty of coffee," Jared proposed with a grin.

"Alright, fine," Sarah said. "Just don't blame me when I annoy you to death with what my students wrote," Sarah said. She went back down to her apartment and came back up to Jared's with her backpack. In the few short minutes that she'd been downstairs, Jared had pulled his writing desk away from the window and into the middle of the room. It was some gigantic, heavily ornamented thing, and lord only knows how he had even managed to get it into the door, and forget about the logistics of trying to fit it into the elevator. It, like much of the living/kitchen area, was cluttered with papers, but a heavy, antique type writer sat on one corner, and Jared had cleared off the opposite corner for Sarah to work on.

"Is this alright, precious?" Jared asked with a grand gesture towards the desk.

"Yeah," Sarah agreed. Jared gestured towards the chair that he'd brought over for her. Sarah sat, brought out the massive stack of essays from her bag, pulled out a rainbow array of pens, and then looked expectantly at Jared. He sat down at the type writer, but only picked up a piece of paper that was right next to him and started to read through it.

For the next several hours, the room was silent except for the soft sounds of a pen on paper, the clack-clack-ding of the type writer, and every so often, Jared would ask for a word substitution or Sarah would read out loud something that one of her students had written.

Finally, Sarah put her pen down and just rubbed the bridge of her nose in complete frustration. "What is it now, precious?" Jared asked, his fingers poised above the keys.

"Listen to this," Sarah said as she picked up the essay that was on top of the stack. "'I think that drama is important to me because I would like to meat celebrities.' And meat is spelt like m-e-a-t. He goes on, a little bit later down the page: 'Pinocchio is like a painted flower; it never wilts. The flow of flowers wanted the TRUTH!' What. The. Fuuuck!"

"I know that I said to bullshit the essay, but I didn't mean to just write whatever nonsense words popped into their heads," Jared said with a slight laugh.

"This kid is a senior; he's going to be graduating in May, and will probably go on to be president or something," Sarah said. She put her head down on the stack of essays and groaned loudly. Jared got up and moved silently around to where Sarah was sitting. He put his hands on her shoulders, and she jumped a little at the contact, but then relaxed a moment later as he started to massage her overly tense muscles.

"It's only just now 3, but maybe we should put this aside for some other time. Go do something else," Jared said, his voice low.

"Yes, alright. I need to stretch my legs. Let's go walk around the block or something; get some fresh air."

Jared agreed, and followed Sarah downstairs so that she could grab her jacket and her purse. Then, they made their way downstairs, where they proceeded to stroll casually down the sidewalk. "If it's this cold in the tail end of October, I can't image what it'll be like come winter," Sarah said.

"Yes, but don't you just love the fall, precious?" Jared asked. "The crisp in the air, the vibrant colors of the leaves, the angry tourists who come to leaf-watch." Sarah rolled her eyes.

"In case you hadn't noticed, there's like one tree in this immediate area, and it's a pine tree," Sarah said.

"Fair enough. But I'm sure that since you were raised here, you know what I mean."

"Well, not close around here, but in upstate New York, yes," Sarah agreed. "Every damned year, the people from lower New York would come up just to gawk at the trees. They're just leaves, and they literally do the same stupid thing every damned year!"

"It's probably a good thing that we went for a walk, if you're getting this worked up over the leaves," Jared said with all seriousness.

"I'm sorry. I'm just incredibly frustrated with some of my students. …Most of my students. Well, I'm sure that you figured that out." Sarah looked slyly up at Jared, who offered her a small smile. "What are you working on? Salacious, infuriating, bewitching, just to name a few of the words you asked about."

"I think that I'm going to try my hand at romance again," Jared said.

"I thought that you said that it didn't work out for you?" Sarah asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It didn't, but that doesn't mean that I should abandon the genre," Jared said with an absent shrug.

"Can I read it?"

"Perhaps."

"I meant sometime before you send it off to your publisher."

"I know."

"You are incredibly frustrating; you know that, right?"

"So I've been told," Jared said with a slight laugh.

"Why do you use a type writer? Wouldn't it be easier to use a laptop?"

"Not for me. Technology and I… er… how should I put this? We don't always get along. There's too much that could go wrong. For example, what if the computer dies and takes with it the only copy of my novel?"

"Judging by what your apartment looks like and how you just threw your finished pages all over the room, I'm surprised that you've never lost pages before."

"True, it's not exactly ideal, but wouldn't it be better to lose a single page rather than the entire story?"

"I suppose so, yes."

"Besides, there's something thrilling about the noise that a typewriter makes. It makes me feel like the older authors."

"If you want to be really old fashioned, maybe you should get a quill and some ink."

"I've done that; it's not nearly as fun as you might think it would be."

"What, are you serious?" Sarah looked up at Jared, who only looked down at Sarah with a blank expression.

"Exceptionally, my dear," Jared said evenly. Sarah gave him a lingering puzzled look before she absently shook her head. "Anyway, your friend from this morning…"

"Oh no," Sarah groaned. "Listen, don't pay any attention to Ashley, because she is a horrible flirt. She'll probably have completely forgotten all about you by tomorrow."

"Well, it's a good thing that I wasn't going to consider my single cousins," Jared said with a slight laugh. "I don't think that Ms. Ashley would find them overly agreeable, however, and that's why I didn't. Not that I find your friend disagreeable at all."

"Well, you clearly don't know her very well." Sarah looked up at Jared. "Is it true that you've got five brothers?"

"Yes, and six sisters," Jared said. Sarah quickly did the math, and then her jaw fell open.

"Holy shit! Are you serious? You've got eleven brothers and sisters?"

"Yes."

"Your poor mother. Wait… You mean that you've got a bunch of half-siblings and step-siblings… right? Not full-siblings."

"No, they are all the children of my biological parents."

"The only thing that comes to mind is: Why? Just why? Why would anybody want to have that many children?"

"To fully answer that, I'd have to delve into the social-economic and psychological situations of my parents as they grew up, as well and the circumstances that surrounded their marriage, not to mention…" Jared trailed off and offered Sarah a sheepish smile. "Maybe you'll meet my mother some day, and then she can explain it to you."

"And your father?"

"He died. A long time ago."

"Oh. I'm sorry," Sarah said quickly.

"It might be the reason why I'm the youngest of 12 instead of the middle child of 30," Jared said with a quiet laugh. "But you have a younger half-brother, do you not?"

"Um, yeah. How did you know that? Did Mrs. Kelley tell you?" Sarah asked as she looked sharply to Jared.

"Yes, something like that," Jared said with an air that lead Sarah to believe that there was more than what Jared said.

"My mom walked out on my dad and me when I was little, and then my dad remarried. To a very horrid woman named Irene. Toby came around a year later. I used to hate him when he was little, but then I guess that I decided that he wasn't so bad."

"Oh? What made you change your mind?" Jared asked casually. Sarah stopped walking abruptly; Jared walked a couple of steps ahead of her before he realized that she was no longer at his side, and turned around to face her.

"You know… It's funny," Sarah said slowly. "I remember hating Toby one day, and then the next, I think that I just loved him to pieces. And I think that there's something important that I'm forgetting, but for the life of me, I just can't remember." Jared frowned at Sarah, but didn't offer anything. Sarah shook her head slowly. "You know, it's not important. That was a long time ago; Toby started the fifth grade this year. When I last spoke with him, he was really excited because he was going to start learning how to play the trumpet. Dad, on the other hand, was less enthusiastic about the entire thing!"

They'd walked a couple of blocks away from the apartment building, and now faced a park. Despite the chilly temperatures, there were still plenty of children that ran around, and barely-dressed joggers that ran down the paths. "Look, trees," Jared said in a teasing manor.

"Yeah, alright. I guess that they are rather pretty," Sarah said reluctantly. A small smile played around her lips as they crossed the street and went into the park. The second that they set foot on one of the winding paths, Sarah jumped a little and muttered a soft word of complaint.

"What's wrong?" Jared asked with an air of concern.

Sarah wordlessly shook her head. "I… I don't know. Something shocked me really bad." She rubbed at her lower back absently and looked around, as if she could spot the offending build-up of static electricity.

"Are you alright?" Jared asked with a raised eyebrow. Sarah nodded, and then they continued on. The two of them approached a small stand that was selling flowers, despite the off season.

"Where I'm from, it was easy to find the most beautiful flowers," Jared told Sarah as they got closer to the stand. "Here, not so much."

"What's wrong with the flowers here?" Sarah asked. "I think that they're nice."

"Oh, they are nice. But it was better back near my home." Jared produced a crisp five dollar bill from his pocket, which he exchanged for a bouquet of mixed flowers; he presented them to Sarah. "It's only just 3 now, and I think that I know where the theater is. Do you want to catch a movie, and then grab some dinner?"

"Alright," Sarah said as she looked up from smelling the flowers. "I don't even know what's playing right now."

"Me neither. So we can just pick something at random. And if it's bad, then we'll suffer through a bad movie together."

"Alright," Sarah agreed with a small smile.


	4. Chapter 4

Same as before: not proof read, please let me know of any mistakes I might have made. Thank you to Honoria Granger for the grammatical help!

Cheers and hope you enjoy. I know I did. ;)

* * *

"You don't have to walk me to my door again," Sarah protested as Jared followed her out of the elevator on the fifth floor.

"Ah, you're not hoping for a repeat of Thursday night, are you, precious?" Jared asked with a teasing smirk. Sarah eyed Mrs. Kelley's apartment door, before she put her apartment key into the door and quickly opened it.

"J-just in case," Sarah stammered as she walked inside. Sarah paused to put the bouquet of flowers on the table by the door that she used to put her mail on, and Jared stepped in behind her. He then closed her door before he grabbed Sarah, whirled her around so that she was facing him, pressed her up against the door, and kissed her soundly.

"Forgive me if I have misjudged your actions," Jared whispered, his lips not even an inch away from Sarah's.

"N-no, I-" Sarah was cut off as Jared pressed his lips to hers once again in a searing kiss. Then, Jared started to trail kisses down Sarah's throat; his day-old stubble scraped roughly against the sensitive flesh of the hollow of her throat, but the action only further aroused her, rather than to turn her off, like her many misadventures with other men in college.

As soon as Jared reached the top of her blouse, his slender fingers made quick work of the buttons so that he could continue, and before Sarah knew it, her entire blouse was undone, and Jared was pressing wet kisses onto her belly, above the waistband of her jeans.

Jared straightened up and pressed his lips to hers again. Then, he slowly pushed the blouse off from Sarah's shoulders— it pooled around her elbows, since her hands were clutching at Jared's shirt like it was the last thing that was keeping her sane. Jared gently pulled her left hand away, and softly kissed the palm of Sarah's hand before he ran his tongue up her index finger and started to suck on it. Sarah let out a low, breathy moan, and dropped her other hand down by her side to allow the blouse to slip off.

Jared released Sarah's finger with a low pop, and pushed her blouse the rest of the way off before he grabbed the cups of Sarah's bra and pushed them down while simultaneously pushing her breasts up. He brushed his thumbs over her semi-erect nipples, and then slowly started to lap at her left nipple. Sarah reached back and unhooked her bra, since the position that Jared had put her breasts into was less than comfortable, and Jared slowly slid the straps down her arms, his fingers lingering at her inner elbow longer than probably necessary.

Sarah grabbed Jared's face and pulled him down to her lips for a passionate, lingering kiss. Jared nipped lightly at her lower lip before he ran his tongue along to sooth the slight pain. Then, he got onto his knees and started to kiss Sarah's belly again, just above the top of her jeans. He popped the button and undid the zipper before he slowly pushed the pants down her hips, which slithered to the floor.

"I think that I have made a tactical error here," Jared said after a moment hesitation after he removed Sarah's pants.

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked with confusion.

"I forgot to take your shoes off, and now it's going to be a problem," Jared said with a slight laugh. Sarah reached down and pulled her pants back up, but didn't fasten them. Jared picked up her left foot and undid the laces before he slid the shoe off, quickly followed by her sock. He repeated the gesture on Sarah's other foot before he tugged at the material of Sarah's jeans; she released her hold of the waist, and Jared pulled them down to her feet before he gently lifted her feet out from the material and brushed her pants out of the way.

Then, he grabbed the top of Sarah's panties and pushed them down as well; he lifted her feet once again to remove the material from around her legs, and brushed them away. Jared then pressed a gentle kiss onto Sarah's inner ankle, and slowly started to kiss up her left leg until Sarah leg rested over Jared's shoulder.

He pressed soft kisses onto her inner thigh while his fingers combed through the wild tangle of dark curls at the junction of Sarah's thighs. Sarah's breath caught in her throat at Jared's first, gentle caress of her outer labia, and then she fell back against the door when he slowly started to rub at her clitoris.

Sarah let out a low groan and started to scratch lightly at the door when Jared began to lick at her clitoris. After several moments of this, he started to lap at the opening of her vagina, while he ran his thumb in tantalizing circles around her clit. Sarah fisted her hands, her nails digging into the palms so that she wouldn't damage her front door.

After a moment, Sarah fisted one hand in Jared's soft hair. She threw her head back and let out a long, breathy moan as her entire body started to wildly convulse. Despite Sarah's orgasm, Jared did not stop his movements, only slowed them considerably, which prolonged Sarah's pleasure.

With one final flick of his tongue, Jared pulled back from Sarah, and looked up at her with a feral smile. She let out a shaky breath, and was grateful that he had a firm hold on her leg, and the sold door at her back, or else she would have fallen over. Jared slowly unhooked her leg from around his shoulder and put it back down on the ground; his fingers lingered for a moment on her calf before he stood, cupped her face, and gave Sarah a gentle, lingering kiss.

"That was amazing," Sarah whispered, her lips barely touching Jared's. "I don't think that I've ever had an orgasm like that before." Jared offered her a cocky smile.

"I've barely even started," he whispered before he kissed her again. He then picked Sarah up with ease, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. Jared navigated blindly through the living room to Sarah's bedroom like he'd done it a thousand times before, and gently set her down on the edge of her bed. Sarah didn't release him, and only tugged him down onto the bed with her for another kiss.

Jared pulled away from her briefly to pull his shirt off, which he tossed behind him. Sarah ran her fingers down Jared's lean yet muscular chest, her hands stilling briefly over his nipples, before they went down past his obliques to the top of his jeans. Her hands shook a little as she undid the button on his pants, but Jared grabbed her hands before she could move on to the zipper.

"Are you nervous, precious?" he whispered. She could only nod. "Why? This isn't your first time, is it?"

"No, of course not!" Sarah said quickly. "I'm… I'm just not any good with relationships."

"You are completely perfect," Jared said before he kissed her again.

"Maybe this isn't the best time to bring this up…" Sarah whispered.

"Probably not," Jared agreed with a slight scowl.

"I'm just worried that I'm not going to live up to your expectations."

"What if I told you that being here with you right now is my expectation?" Jared said lowly as he crawled on top of Sarah. He gently kissed her temple. "Would it make you feel better if I gave you another orgasm?" Sarah wordlessly nodded, and gave Jared a shy smile. He rolled off of her, to the side, and slowly started to rub his fingers along her vagina, and payed special attention to her clit.

For a long time, the only sounds that filled the apartment were the ragged sounds of Sarah's breathing and the gentle, wet sounds as Jared fingered her. Her breathing hitched as she came, and then her body wildly spasmed against the bed and her fingers scratched for anything that she could hold onto.

After a couple of minutes, her breathing returned to normal, and she smiled sleepily up at Jared. "Do you feel better now?" he asked. She wordlessly nodded, and then reached for him. He kissed her eagerly, and Sarah's hands once again trailed down Jared's chest, to the top of his jeans, where she undid the zipper, and pushed them down. His penis sprang out from the confines of his pants, rock-hard and slightly throbbing with his arousal.

Sarah grasped his penis in her hands, which made Jared let out a low groan and he bucked into her hand. "Precious, I have been nothing but a complete gentleman to you up until this point, but I am almost at my own breaking point right now," he practically growled at Sarah.

"Good, because I've wanted you inside me ever since this morning," Sarah whispered.

"What do you mean? We could have been-" Jared broke off when Sarah pressed her lips to his in a rough kiss.

"I'll tell you later," she whispered against his lips. "Let's do something that requires less talking right now." Jared raised an eyebrow at Sarah, but only started to quickly remove his pants and shoes. He grabbed a condom out from the pocket of his jeans, ripped the packet open with his teeth, and rolled the condom on over his erection. Then, he grabbed Sarah and lifted her up so that she was straddling his hips. "I didn't imagine you as being a bottom."

"I will be your slave," Jared whispered as Sarah sunk slowly down onto him. Sarah's breath caught in her throat, and after a brief moment where she paused to allow herself to adjust to his size, she put her hands on Jared's chest and slowly started to move.

After a moment, Sarah noticed the scowl on Jared's face, and she stilled. "What's wrong?" she whispered as she ran her fingers along his mouth. He caught her fingers in his mouth easily, gave each of them a slow lick before he released them. Then, he reached up and cupped Sarah's breasts.

"Nothing," he whispered. "I'm just admiring the view." He trailed his hands down to Sarah's hips and slowly started to move into her. Sarah ran her hands over her breasts, and then down her stomach, before her right hand delved into her pubic hair and she started to rub herself. "Yes," Jared said with a strained groan. "Tell me how I make you feel, precious."

Sarah licked her lips hesitantly, before he whispered, "Good." Jared paused and Sarah let out a low moan of protest.

"If that's the only thing that I'm making you feel, then I don't think that I'm doing a decent-enough job."

"No, don't stop," Sarah whined. "You make me feel amazing. I've never feel like this before."

"I see," Jared said with a smirk. "Do you want to change position?" Sarah nodded slightly. "How?" Sarah wet her lips again, and Jared followed the motion with his eyes hungrily.

"Take me from behind," she finally whispered. "Roughly." Jared's smirk grew bigger, and he helped Sarah climb off from him. She got on her hands and knees, with her bottom facing Jared. He sat up on his knees, and ran his hands down her butt, before he trailed them up her back. He then grasped her long hair at the same time that he slammed into her pussy from behind. Sarah let out a strangled cry and dug her fingers into the bedspread.

Jared wrapped Sarah's hair tightly around his wrist, and used it as a sort of handle as he roughly continued to pound into Sarah. With his other hand, he reached up and started to rub at Sarah's clit in time with his thrusts. Sarah gave out another cry. "Yes, cum for me, precious," he whispered. Another strangled cry. "Scream my name."

"J-jared!"

"Louder!"

"Jared!"

"I still can't hear you!"

"Jared!" Sarah screamed as her entire body started to shake wildly from her orgasm.

"Yes, yes! Sarah!" Jared roared as he stilled inside of Sarah. A moment later, he fell over onto his back, and dragged Sarah back with him. He released his hold of her hair, and she separated from him. Jared let out a low groan of disappointment as she did so, but a moment later, he wrapped his arms around her and she snuggled into his side.

"Poor Mrs. Kelley," Sarah murmured after a moment.

"Her room is on the other side of the apartment, and I don't think that she sleeps with her hearing aid in," Jared said with a slow, teasing smile. Sarah looked up at Jared and returned his smile.

"Did I live up to your expectations?"

"You passed with flying colors," Jared replied. He kissed her forehead. "You should get some sleep now— you look completely exhausted."

"I am," Sarah replied. She heaved a contented sigh, closed her eyes, and a moment later, her breathing had evened out.

* * *

Jareth lay in bed and just watched as Sarah slept. It was completely amazing to him. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that he would be to the point where he could make love to Sarah like this. Ten years of his own wishing, and it had finally happened.

He had seen her with other men, which was how he knew what she liked. Even though when he'd first watched Sarah lose her virginity to some drunk frat boy she'd met at a party, he'd been completely furious. Her first time should have been with him, not with somebody who couldn't even remember her name when they woke up. The guy had made Sarah cry, and if Jareth had had any power, he would have gone and punched the guy's lights out for Sarah.

After that horrible night, he noticed that Sarah took more care in choosing her sexual partners. Her first time might not have been overly enjoyable for her, but after that, she began to learn that it could be. And as Sarah learned about her sexual likes and dislikes, so did Jareth. Even though this was their first time together, it felt to Jareth as if it really wasn't, because he knew the way that she moaned, the way that she liked to be stimulated, her favorite positions.

Sarah let out a soft whimper in her sleep and snuggled closer to him. He held her tighter and decided that she was in a deep enough sleep cycle for him to risk doing this— to delve into her mind to try and find out why she could not remember him or her time spent in the Labyrinth.

He'd tried to peek into her mind earlier when they'd gone into the park, but something had blocked him, even though the thoughts of her baby brother were fresh on her mind from their conversation. Jareth tried not to use his magic around the buildings, as it tended to cause all sorts of problems with the electricity, but he really wanted some answers and figured that a little black out would be a small price to pay.

He gently pressed his fingers on either side of Sarah's temples, and closed his eyes. He found Sarah's dream first, and quickly brushed past it, as well as her most recent thoughts, which were, of course, filled with him. He latched onto Sarah's thoughts of him, which lead him backwards in her day: the walk home from the restaurant, the overly romantic dinner at the restaurant, the movie, himself presenting her with the flowers, him slowly reaching out to her with his magic to try and find the block in her memory, which had shocked her.

Jareth then latched onto that memory, because it was linked to what he was after, even if Sarah didn't realize or remember it. He wasn't quite certain what to expect once he did find Sarah's memories of her time in the Labyrinth, but it wasn't this. It looked as if somebody had put all of her memories into a box, wrapped the box with some locked chains, put the box into wet cement, and then put the cement block into a bricked room.

Whoever had done this, it was not Sarah. No, this wreaked of a very strong, and powerful magic. But who had Sarah come into contact with that was this powerful? The friends that she'd made were barely capable of producing even a flower with their pitiful brand of magic, let alone to create a spell like this.

As Jareth broke the spell and pulled away from Sarah, both physically and mentally, the first thing that popped into his head was that he needed to research this. But, he'd worked hard to get this far, and he'd be damned if he would let Sarah think that this was just some roll in the hay for him.

He needed time to think, but time was not currently on his side. His kingdom was currently not being ruled by anybody, even though he checked in daily to make sure that his moronic subjects had not completely reduced the entire kingdom to rubble. And if he stayed away for too long, it was only a matter of time until somebody noticed his absence.

Jareth's family had been ruling the Underworld for about as long as there had been an Underworld. And you don't become such a powerful family like that without making more than a few enemies along the way. If one of them were to realize that Jareth was missing from his kingdom, it wouldn't take much for them to seize power. Even if Jareth ruled what most Fae described as the most deplorable kingdom out of them all, being the Goblin King still would be a lot better than not having a kingdom at all.

But with Sarah pressed up against him, it was easy for Jareth to convince himself that he didn't want to go back there anyway. He hated his subjects, he hated his kingdom, he hated having to kidnap babies, and most of all, he hated having the deal with the overly jealous Fae who wanted to usurp his rule, and the women who clung to him and followed him around in the hopes that he would turn his attention onto them and make one of them his queen.

Bottom-sucking remoras, Jareth thought with a scowl. None of those women ever so much as gave me a second thought until after Ikhael was married. And suddenly I'm the center of their attention. Which doesn't exactly make me view any of those remoras in a favorable light.

And Jareth's next oldest brother had gotten married over a century ago.

When Jareth had come to fulfill Sarah's first wish that the Goblin King take away her baby brother, he had first seen a stubborn brat. But, as the night wore on, he began to see her creativity, her cunning, her friendliness, and most of all, her bravery. And by the time that he told Hogwash to give the drugged peach to Sarah, he knew that he would have her, in one way or another.

So, he tried to woo her with sweet words and a glimpse into the life that she could have if she chose him over her screaming baby brother. But, she'd seen through the spell and managed to break out— he hadn't stopped her. He offered her again when he'd cornered her in the escher room, but as Sarah whispered those six little words that would haunt Jareth's dreams, he realized that it wasn't so much that she didn't understand his words.

It was that she was too young to understand that he was completely serious. She didn't see the complete love in his eyes, and how completely heartbroken that he was when she'd said it.

Oh, it wasn't even about Toby; not in the end, anyway. Even if she'd accepted, Irene and Robert would have found their son in his crib, sound asleep.

But, as Jareth had watched Sarah throughout the next decade, he began to realize that she'd had a lot of growing up to do. After all, being Fae meant that Jareth was close to immortal, and he was somewhere over 2,000 years old; he didn't remember what it was like to be 15.

* * *

Falling.

Falling.

Hands.

Disembodied hands that kept dragging Sarah down…

…Down…

…Down…

She awoke with a start, her body shaking from fright and drenched in sweat, despite the fact that the apartment was freezing and she currently wasn't wearing anything.

"Sarah?" Jared asked in a hushed voice. She clung to him desperately, and he wrapped his arms tight around her. "What's wrong?"

"I…" Sarah gulped. "I don't know. Falling. And… and hands!"

"Hands?" Jared asked with a frown.

"Y-yeah. I was falling, and the hands were pulling me down."

"What do you mean, hands? Where were they coming from?"

"I don't know. Nowhere, I guess." There was a soft beep from the living room, and the apartment's heater kicked on with a low roar. "What was that?"

"I believe that there was a black out," Jared told her calmly.

"Oh. That would explain why the apartment's freezing," Sarah whispered as she sat up and grabbed the blankets that had been kicked to the foot of the bed. She lay back down and Jared helped her to cocoon themselves in them.

They lay on their sides, facing one another; Jared's semi-erect penis pressed into Sarah's lower belly, but they both ignored it. Sarah closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against Jared's.

"It was just a dream," she whispered. Jared didn't say anything. He just kissed her forehead and held her tightly.


	5. Chapter 5

I'm not overly happy with this chapter, but at the same time, I feel as if it's important for later. (I already know that it's important because I just finished up chapter 7 and, oh gosh, this sets everything up in that chapter.)

Grammatical mistakes? You should know what to do.

* * *

"And even if I were to come back home, I'm not even sure if I'd know where to begin looking for answers about this," Jareth said as he paced in front of the crystal that floated a few inches away from his face. "I'm completely at a loss here."

"I see," Amael, Jareth's mother, responded coldly. "I guess I now know why you had not responded to my ball invitation."

"Mother," Jareth said in a low growl as he spun around to face the crystal. "Not everything revolves around your balls and other society gatherings."

"Well, as I'm sure that you've figured out centuries ago, I mainly use them as an excuse to introduce you to elegible women for you to marry," Amael said evenly. "But, I probably shouldn't have bothered if you were going to go around and start playing happy homemaker with the first human woman who so much as looks at you."

"Mother!" Jareth barked out.

"Fine, fine! Your relationship with this girl is different— you aren't using her as a means to an end because you looove her! Yeah." She raised an eyebrow at Jareth. "If only I'd heard that line before."

"You don't have to understand what it's like, mother," Jareth snapped at her. "I'm only asking for your assistant in the matter. I'd like to make Sarah my queen, but I have to at least try and figure out what that… thing is inside her mind! If I take her back to my kingdom, it might have some ill effect on her."

"I only have one question, followed by one request," Amael said with a sigh of defeat.

"Alright," Jareth agreed rather reluctantly.

"Do you love her? This… Sarah?"

"To madness," Jareth said without missing a beat. Amael nodded her head slowly.

"Then I'd like to speak to her."

"What about?" Jared said with a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

"Well, as your mother, I feel that it would be within your best interests if I talked to her about you," Amael said; she seemed to be choosing her words with care. "But, it might help me to get a feel for what's going on in her mind, even if I can't be there to see it for myself."

"Alright. I will figure out some way for you to be able to talk with Sarah," Jareth said, his mind already set to the task.

"Before you go, honey…" Amael said, her voice sugary-sweet. "What do you want me to do about your kingdom?"

"Obviously, this entire venture with trying to figure out Sarah's blocked memories will be for naught if I can't offer her my kingdom," Jareth said.

"This woman's really gotten to you, hasn't she?" Amael said with a small smile. "Rather than worrying about what whoever might take your throne would do to your kingdom, your subjects, and most importantly, your Labyrinth, you're worried about not having enough to give to her."

"Why do you mention it? Is it a bad thing that I want to give Sarah the world?"

"That's not bad; that's love, honey."

Jareth offered his mother a bright smile. "I see. Thanks for your help in the matter. I'll contact you soon about speaking with Sarah."

"Alright. Be safe, and I love you."

Jareth dismissed the crystal with a wave of his hand before he stalked away from the park where he'd gone to in order to have the conversation without causing a black out.

* * *

"So, I finally got around to calling my mother today," Jared started as he started to pick things out from his refrigerator.

"Oh yeah?" Sarah asked with a raised eyebrow.

"It's a lot harder to call her now that I live in America; long-distance calls are expensive! And I've been busy, okay?"

"It's not that I don't believe any of that, because I do," Sarah said quickly. "I'm just curious if there was some reason why you brought it up or if you're just making idle chit-chat."

"No, there's a reason," Jared said quickly. "Of course I told her about the wonderful woman that I met, and she said that she'd like to talk to you sometime." He looked over his shoulder as he washed some peppers off at the sink to see Sarah's reaction; she was looking at everything but him.

"Why?" she finally said. Jared gave a non-committal shrug.

"She's curious as to who's captured the heart of her youngest child, I suppose."

"Well, I suppose that it couldn't hurt," Sarah said hesitantly after giving it a moment of thought. "Wait, you're not going to turn into one of those guys whose relationship with a woman hinges on the approval of their mother, are you?"

"Of course not," Jared said as he put the fruit on the counter. "I'm an adult and my mother knows that."

"Okay, good," Sarah said. Jared leaned across the counter and lightly pressed his lips to Sarah's.

"And even if she doesn't approve… so what? She's all the way across the pond in London right now. What's she going to do about it?"

"I just don't want to talk to her and then she'll hop on her broom and fly across the Atlantic to turn me into a toad."

"That's not her style, precious," Jared said. He kissed Sarah again before he pulled away, grabbed a knife from the display by the sink, and started to cut the peppers. "Just be yourself, and she'll have a hard time liking you."

* * *

With an angry sigh, Jareth waved his hand over the pieces of plastic and wiring that had once been his phone. He had only purchased it the other day so that he could try to figure out how he could put a communication crystal inside of one so that Sarah could talk to his mother without raising suspicions.

Until he figured out what exactly was the cause of the block on Sarah's memories of her time in the Labyrinth, he figured that he should err on the side of caution and do as little magic around her as possible.

The phone put itself back together quickly; Jareth conjured another communication crystal— an open line to his kingdom— and carefully slipped it into the mouthpiece of the phone. The plastic cracked a little, but it was nothing like the explosions that had happened on the other four tries. Jareth easily repaired the plastic, and gave a triumphant smile.

* * *

"Just be yourself, precious," Jared whispered as he handed the phone to Sarah. He kissed her temple before he backed away to give Sarah and his mother some privacy.

"Hello?" Sarah asked hesitantly as she held the phone up to her ear. Little did she know that the phone didn't even work— a side effect of the magic.

"Hello Sarah. It's so nice to finally be able to speak to you. Jared has said so much about you."

"He has?" Sarah asked, a little surprised. As far as she knew, Jared had only called his mother once since he'd been in New York.

"Well, as much as he can in one conversation," Amanda said with a slight laugh. "So, Jared tells me that you're a theater teacher."

"Yes, that's right. At a high school."

"Jared always did love the theater, and he's always had a flare for being overly theatrical. Did he ever tell you about the time when he…"

* * *

"You two spoke for a really long time," Jareth said as he looked into the crystal with the image of his mother.

"There was a lot for us to discuss. Sarah's a lovely young woman," Amael said with a small smile. "If your father were still alive, he would have loved her."

"I'm glad that you like her," Jareth said. "Sarah was worried about what I would do if you didn't. She was also worried about the massive phone bill that I would recieve thanks to your long conversation, and offered to pay for it."

"Well, aren't you glad that somebody decided not to levy a tax on magic during the Renaissance?" Amael asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I still stand by my initial observation that it would have generated a lot of money for the crown faster," Jareth said with a scowl.

"Then I suppose that it's a good thing that you're not in line to be the high king after I die, because I don't think that you would be overly popular."

"My subjects love me!" Jareth protested. "Well, about as much as a goblin can love something more than his own belly button lint. But we're getting off topic."

"Hm, yes," Amael agreed. "It was difficult to get fully into her mind across such a distance, while limited by both the communication crystal as well as the fact that we're in separate worlds. But I do see what you mean. I don't think that I've ever come across anything quite like that before. It is a bit of a puzzle. Do you mind if I talk to Kielat about this? You know how much she completely loves mysteries like this."

"My sister?" Jareth raised an eyebrow. "I suppose, but mention me as little as possible, and don't say anything about the fact that this spell as been cast on a human, or that she lives Aboveworld. Unless you think that it might have something to do with how strong that the spell is."

"If you want my initial thoughts on the matter, I think that the reason why the spell is so strong is because it's been ten years since Sarah ran your Labyrinth, and that time has given the spell time to solidify to such a state."

"You mean it's matured like fine wine or cheese?"

"Yes, exactly."

"But it would take an exceptionally skilled magic user in order to cast a spell that would be that strong," Jareth said with a puzzled frown.

"I know that this was never your strong suit, but what of the magical signature?"

"Mag… Mother, I was so surprised by what I found in Sarah's mind, that looking for the magical signature was probably the farthest thing from my mind. And besides, I have no idea who might have done this to Sarah. She was only in my Labyrinth for less than thirteen hours."

"And it never occurred to you that somebody else was watching her as she ran?"

"I was watching Sarah pretty much the entire time," Jareth said with a frown. "If there had been anybody else who was also watching her, I would have sensed them."

"Well, that woman would barely clap for Tinkerbell (1), let alone to have magic strong enough to do this to herself," Amael snapped. "I want you to go back into her mind to try and get a sense of the magical signature."

"I'm honestly a bit worried about what prolonged contact with magic might do to Sarah."

"You've already been inside of her mind once, as well as the first time you tried to find out what was wrong," Amael said sourly. "And if her memories of the Labyrinth are sealed up, why didn't she have a reaction to you when you first showed up?"

"Could it be that I look too different now?"

"It could be, but you said yourself that when she first saw you in the elevator, she asked if you'd met before," Amael said. Jareth paced in front of the crystal, which hung in the air at eye level so that he could move about.

"And what about the nightmare that she had the other night? It sure sounds like one part of my Labyrinth. Do you think that she's starting to break through the barrier on her own?"

"It could be that your continued presence in her life is starting to chip away at it, yes," Amael agreed absently. "But, I think that it's important that you keep a close eye on her. Nightmares are one thing, but if she starts to have vivid flashbacks during her waking hours, you should probably bring her to me at once."

"Yes, I agree," Jareth said with a frown. "I should go— I promised Sarah I'd watch this dreadful TV program with her tonight." Jareth rolled his eyes.

"Alright. Keep me posted, and I'll see what I can dig up about this on my end."

* * *

"I've never had a conversation with somebody's mother before," Sarah started. Her feet were propped up on Jared's lap, and her head rested on the armrest of her sofa. The TV flickered before them, and cast weird shadows onto the wall behind them in the dark of Sarah's apartment.

"You've never talked to a mother before in your life?" Jared asked.

"Shut up, you know what I mean!" Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. "I just… it's weird to think that somebody actually wants to be around me."

"You are a very likable, intelligent, not to mention beautiful, young woman, Sarah," Jared said with a small smile. "I can't imagine that any man would give up a chance to spend time with you."

"Well, maybe I'm not always so nice to people?" Sarah said with a smirk. "Maybe I have a tendency to want to push people away? I don't normally want to be around people."

"But I'm different?"

"I think that you are," Sarah whispered as she looked up at him. Jared leaned over Sarah and gently kissed her lips. "Hey, okay, I'm trying to watch this show, okay?"

"Considering that we just spent the past two minutes talking, I'd say that you're not overly keen on the show."

Sarah moved her right leg so that it was on the other side of Jared, pushed herself into a sitting position, and straddled Jared's lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and then proceeded to make out with him for several minutes.

"You didn't have to lie about wanting to watch TV if all you wanted to do was to kiss me," Jared said with a shit eating grin.

"I did want to watch this show," Sarah explained with a smirk of her own. "A lot of students at school talk about this show, and some of the other teachers were a bit worried that it's inappropriate for them to be watching."

"Anybody with eyes could have told you that," Jared said simply. "The show didn't even wait for the opening credits to roll before they made a sex joke. But how exactly does watching the filth that your students watch help you to stop them?"

"I don't know… I've got more interesting and more immediate things to think about right now," Sarah said as she pulled her shirt off over her head.

"Hm, yes. I agree," Jared said before he gave Sarah a lingering, searing kiss. Sarah rocked her hips over Jared's erection, before she pulled away from his kiss to give off a breathy moan of pleasure. Jared removed Sarah's bra before Sarah pulled Jared's shirt off. After several more heated kisses, Sarah slithered off from Jared's lap and knelt on the ground in front of him. She quickly undid his jeans and with a little help from Jared, pushed them down.

Then, she wrapped her hands around his engorged cock and gave it a few, leisurely tugs. Then, she looked up at Jared from under her lashes— her eyes were dark in the dim light of the living room, darker than usual— before she gave his penis a tentative lick. Jared's breath caught in his throat when Sarah wrapped her lush lips around him and ran her tongue around the edge of the head of his penis.

The television, the volume on low, covered the sounds of Jared's breathy moans as Sarah pleasured him. "Sarah," Jared groaned after several minutes, which was immediately followed by a low groan. Sarah coughed a little, her mouth still around Jared's erection, before she pulled back; strings of saliva mixed with semen trailed from her mouth until she reached up a hand and wiped them away.

"Well then, now that you've made me cum, what in the world am I to do with you until I'm ready to go again?" Jared asked after they'd both collected themselves a little. Sarah put her hands on the top of Jared's legs and used the leverage to push herself to her feet.

"That all depends on what you want to do," Sarah said. She put her hands on her hips and struck an alluring yet cocky pose. Jared put his hands on Sarah's hips, above where her own hands were resting, and pulled her closer to him until her knees hit the couch. Jared then buried his face between Sarah's breasts, and gently nipped at the sensitive flesh that he found there, before he ran his tongue over where he'd just bitten.

Jared undid the side zip on Sarah's skirt and it fell easily to the ground. Then, Jared pushed down Sarah's panties until they fell onto the ground as well. Sarah stepped out of her shoes as she stepped out from her skirt and panties, and Jared pushed her back a little so that he could stand. "Lie down," he told her.

Sarah lay back down on the sofa with her head on the armrest, like it had been earlier. Jared picked up Sarah's right leg and pressed a gentle kiss onto her inner ankle. Then, he started to kiss up her leg.

"You did the same thing the other day," Sarah whispered as Jared got closer and closer to her vagina, which was already throbbing slightly from the anticipation.

"If you are unhappy with my actions, then I am more than willing to stop."

"When in what I just said did I tell you to stop?" Sarah said with a raised eyebrow. Jared ran his tongue up Sarah's inner thigh, and gave her the same look that she had given him about ten minutes earlier. Sarah gave him a little pout, and he turned his attention back to the task at hand.

Jared started to lick at Sarah's clitoris and after a moment, he put his middle finger into her vagina and started to move it in a sort of come-hither gesture inside of her. Sarah made a whispered oh and she buckled her hips against Jared.

"Don't hold back on me, precious," Jared whispered before he lightly nipped at her inner labia. "I want for you to ejaculate for me."

"I… I've never been able to do that before," Sarah panted.

"That's because your other lovers were mere children in comparison to me," Jared said. "You know that I can make you scream my name, so it won't be too difficult for me to be able to make you ejaculate." Jared pushed his index finger inside of Sarah next, and started up a rhythm of push, gesture, pull, all the while he continued to apply a delicate yet frustrating pressure to her clit. "Just let go. Don't hold anything back." Sarah let out a low moan as her body started to convulse; her fingers dug into the couch cushions. Jared did not stop his actions, and then coaxed a second, a third, and finally a fourth orgasm out from Sarah. "You didn't cum for me, precious."

"I'm sorry; I tried really hard," Sarah murmured.

"Then I'll just have to try harder next time," Jared said with a smirk. Sarah put her hands up, and Jared grabbed them and yanked Sarah to her feet. Then, he sat back down on the sofa and held up a condom between his index and middle fingers. "On the sofa?" Sarah grabbed the condom from Jared, ripped the package open, took the condom in her mouth, and then slowly slid it over Jared's penis, which was hard once again.

"Wow, I didn't think that that would actually work," Sarah whispered as she pulled away from Jared. She looked rather in awe at what she had done and pleased with herself.

"Who told you about that? Because I'd like to thank them," Jared said with a smirk.

"Um, Ashley did, actually. I don't know where she learned it from, but, yes. She is in need of thanks," Sarah said as she straddled Jared's lap. Jared put his hands on Sarah's hips and guided her as she sunk down onto his straining cock. They both let out breathy moans of satisfaction once they were finally joined. Sarah gripped the back of the couch and used it as leverage as she started to move up and down on Jared's erection.

"I'm not even going to ask anything more about the show that you forced me to watch, but I'm now questioning what's now on," Jared whispered after several minutes.

"What?" Sarah whispered with confusion. She twisted around to see the TV behind her, and then reached for the remote before she switched it off. It had been the only source of light in Sarah's apartment, and once she'd turned the TV off, both of them were unable to see for a few minutes. Sarah ran a hand down Jared's cheek before he turned his head slightly and gave a slight nip to the pad of her thumb before he pulled the digit into his mouth. Sarah let out a low groan before she pulled her hand back and pressed a light kiss to the side of Jared's lips.

"La oss bli en evig, dyrebar," (2) Jared said in a low growl. "Si ja." His lips pressed longingly to Sarah's. "Say yes."

"Yes," Sarah agreed in a breathy moan.

"Si navnet mitt. Say my name!"

"Jared! JARED!" Sarah screamed. She scrunched her eyes closed and watched as a whirlwind of colors exploded behind her eyelids. Her body wildly shook, and she continued to scream Jared's name over and over like a mantra as she had the most intense orgasm of her life.

* * *

1) For those of you who don't know, in the stage adaptation of Peter Pan, the audience must clap if they believe in fairies in order to revive the dead Tinkerbell.

Amael is insinuating that while Sarah enjoys fantasy novels like the story that Jareth wrote, she only views them as being works of pure fiction.

2) La oss bli en evig, dyrebar = Let us become one forever, precious

Si ja = say yes

Si navnet mitt = say my name

Hurray for google translate. If anybody feels as if this is not correct, please let me know ASAP so that I might fix it.


	6. Chapter 6

I'd appreciate it if somebody could tell me any sort of grammatical error that I might have made, as this has not been proof read. I try to catch things, but I'm only human.

I also appreciate all of the reviews, follows, and favorites that this story has been getting. Thank you so much, and I hope that everybody enjoys chapter 6!

* * *

The apartment seemed oddly quiet in the aftermath of their lovemaking. The only sounds were their harsh breathing. Sarah leaned forward and pressed her forehead to the crook of Jared's shoulder and continued to try and catch her breath. Then, she started to laugh; quietly at first, and then she gradually got louder and louder.

"What the hell was that?" she asked with a soft giggle.

"I… I don't know," Jared said hesitantly and in a way that suggested to Sarah that he knew perfectly well what had happened.

"What language was that even?"

"Norwegian."

"I didn't know that you spoke it."

"I don't normally, which is why it never came up."

"But why do you know how to speak it?"

"That's an incredibly long story," Jared said slowly. "One that I hope to someday tell you. Someday." Sarah kissed the side of Jared's mouth, but he made no movement to turn his head and return her kiss.

"Let's go to bed, alright?" Sarah whispered as she climbed off from his lap.

"Yes, alright," Jared agreed. "Just give me a moment, okay?" Jared followed Sarah from the living room to the bedroom, but he only just passed through on his way to the bathroom. Once he'd closed the door, he leaned against the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror.

He didn't think that he looked completely different, especially not naked. His hair was shorter, but that was probably the most dramatic thing that he'd done to alter his appearance… and hair grows back! He hadn't even attempted to mask his unusual eyes. And even though Sarah's gaze had lingered on them for a moment when they'd first met…

Jared heaved a deep sigh and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Despite how he kept trying to convince himself that this was just as good as going back to his kingdom, it really wasn't. These foolish humans had no idea what his precious Sarah was really like— they should be on their knees in order to worship her. Instead, the only thing that she seemed to have was back-talking idiots in her classes.

He needed to do something, but he was also legitimately afraid of what might happen should he attempt to force Sarah's memories to come back. Even though he'd never seen anything specifically like this, he had seen people who'd had their memories blocked off (and for a very good reason, mind you), and their family had tried to force them to remember.

The last person that Jareth had seen this happen to… well, he was still a cackling lunatic who couldn't even feed himself. And the incident had happened well over five decades ago.

"Jared?" Sarah's hesitantly asked from the other side of the door. "You've been in there for a long time now. Are you okay?"

"Yes," Jared said quickly as he shook his head. He pulled the condom off and threw it into the trash can before he washed his hands and came out from the bathroom. "Sorry, I was lost in thought." He pulled Sarah into his arms before he scooped her up and carried her over to the bed. In the time that Jared had been contemplating his next course of action, Sarah had pulled on an overly large T-shirt and a pair of panties. Either as Jared or Jareth, he still preferred to sleep in the nude.

"So listen," Sarah started. But then she fell silent and just stared up at the ceiling.

"I'm listening," Jared said after a long stretch of silence. He turned onto his side and propped his head up with his hands.

"Talking with your mother made me think about my own family for a really long time today," she said hesitantly. "I haven't talked to them or anything, because I only really came up with this idea when I was at school today, but I think that I'd like for you to meet them."

"Okay," Jared said softly.

"I just think that it would be a lot easier to meet them in person rather than to talk to them on the phone. They'll get to see you, and you can talk to my dad and my step-mom and Toby all at once, and they'll get to talk to you. And it's a lot easier than you taking me to London to meet your family."

"Precious, I think that you'd be surprised with how easy it is to go to…" Jared paused slightly to hit the point home. "My home." Sarah turned to face Jared and snuggled into his chest; she didn't seem to have noticed Jared's implication. Or if she did catch the pause in his sentence, she didn't understand what it meant.

"So, you want to take me home to your momma?" Sarah asked with a teasing smile.

"Yes," Jared whispered as he cupped her face between his hands. He kissed her tenderly before she put her head under his chin.

"I've never brought anybody home before," Sarah whispered after a long stretch of silence. "Do you think that it's too soon? We've barely known each other for a week."

"If you feel like you need to do this, then I will trust your judgment completely, precious."

"You aren't worried that my family won't like you?"

"No. If you can trust me not to leave you after one conversation with my mother, then I'll trust you to make an adult decision after one meeting with your family."

"Oh," Sarah whispered. "That is a fair point. I'll try and call them after work tomorrow. So maybe this weekend? If they don't already have plans, that is."

"That sounds like a plan."

* * *

"Hi, Irene."

"Oh, hello, Sarah. We weren't expect to hear from you. How's school?"

"It's good. Busy as ever. We're working on a musical this semester."

"That sounds lovely. I wish that you didn't live so far away so that we could come and see you every now and again."

"Well, that's actually what I've called you about."

"Oh?"

"I met somebody, and I wanted to introduce him to you."

"What? Sarah! That's fantastic! What's his name? What does he do? Is he good looking?"

"Irene!" Sarah exclaimed with a little giggle. "His name is Jared and he's a writer from England."

"Oh wow. You don't even have to say anything else, because he just sounds so handsome! How long have you been seeing him?"

"About a week now, I guess. I know that maybe it's a little early to be taking him home to meet my family, but I already talked to his mom in London for a really long time. And I want to know what you guys think of him."

"I've never said anything to you about this before, Sarah, but I'm actually rather pleased that you've found somebody."

"It's not like I never dated before," Sarah said; despite the fact that she was on the phone, she still gave a roll of her eyes.

"This is news to me."

"So you would have preferred it if I'd told you every time I went on an awful first date and had zero intentions of ever calling the guy back?"

"Probably not," Irene said after a slight moment of hesitation. "Sarah, listen. I know that I'm no stand-in for your actual mother, but you shouldn't be afraid to tell me things."

Sarah bit her lip— Irene was actually a lot better than her own mother in a lot of ways, but there was no way that Sarah was going to tell Irene that. Instead she said, "Well, if it means anything to you, I think that I only told Ashley about half of them. And most of them never went past the first date anyway, so they weren't really worth mentioning."

"But you've found somebody now."

"Yes," Sarah agreed in a near-breathless whisper. "He makes me very happy."

"I'm not quite certain what you're hoping to gain from bringing him to meet us— if you're looking for approval or just our opinions of him— but it is in my opinion that as long as he makes you happy, that's the only thing that really matters."

"Thanks, Irene. It… uh… it really means a lot for you to tell me that."

The step-mother and daughter chatted for a bit more before they made arrangements; after school was over on Friday, Sarah and Jared would drive down to Sarah's childhood home. Irene promised to put off dinner until Sarah could get there, and then they would all have a family meal together.

* * *

"Sarah's here! Sarah's here!" Toby exclaimed as he ran from the front window— the station that he'd posted himself at as soon as he'd gotten home from school that afternoon— to the front door. Irene and Robert followed the exuberant youth outside at a much more sedate pace. After all, the car had just pulled into the driveway.

It did Irene's heart good to see her step-daughter laughing with the handsome blond man as they grabbed their overnight bags from the backseat of Sarah's car. But then, "You! You keep away from my sister!" Toby exclaimed. He marched up to where Sarah was standing by the car with Jared, about to walk over to join her parents at the front door and yanked Sarah's hand roughly.

"Toby!" Sarah said with a half-laugh as she allowed Toby to pull her away.

"Toby Conrad Wilson!" Irene exclaimed. "What in the world has gotten into you? Jared is our guest!"

"That man hurt Sarah!" Toby yelled as he pointed to Jared. Jared's face had gone blank when Toby had first shouted at him, but now he raised his eyebrows in shock.

"Toby, you've not even been properly introduced to Jared," Sarah told the young boy gently as she pried her arm free. "And I can assure you that he has not hurt me!"

"That's only because you've forgotten!" Toby insisted as he stomped his foot on the ground. "But I remember how he kidnapped me when I was a baby!"

"Alright Toby, that is more than enough," Robert said quickly. He marched the few steps over to where Toby and Sarah were standing, grabbed Toby's arm, and steered his son back into the house.

"I am so sorry about that," Irene said quickly as Jared walked over to where the shocked Sarah was standing.

"Your son has a very active imagination, Mrs. Williams," Jared said smoothly as he wrapped his arm around Sarah's waist.

"Oh please, Jared; call me Irene!" the older woman said with a dismissive laugh. "Shall we go inside?" They joined Robert in the living room.

"I don't know what's gotten into Toby," Robert said as he sunk down into his favorite armchair. Irene sat in another chair, and Sarah and Jared sat next to each other on the sofa. "He's normally so well behaved." He awkwardly cleared his throat. "So Sarah tells us that you're a writer, Jared."

"Yes, I am."

* * *

"Toby, I don't know what you think that Jared has done to either me or you, but you're acting exceptionally juvenile right now," Sarah said to her little brother later.

"That's because you don't remember anymore!" Toby insisted.

"Okay, remember what?" Sarah decided to humor him.

"When I was little, you wished that the Goblin King would come and take me away. And he did, but then you tried to get me back, and he made you run in his Labyrinth in order to win me back."

"Uh-huh. Right. And Jared… is this Goblin King?"

"YES!"

"Toby," Sarah said slowly. She exhaled deeply. "I don't know what kind of nonsense that you've been reading or watching or playing or talking about with your friends at school, but this needs to stop."

"No! You're the one who told me about this! When I was a baby!"

"Toby, I told you all sorts of stories when you were little. Why does this one story in particular stick out in your mind?"

"It didn't until I saw that guy! He's the Goblin King!"

Sarah gave a short huff of frustration. "You know what, forget it. Be a petulant brat." She turned on her heel and stormed out from the room. She first went into the guest room, but aside from Jared's bag that sat on the bed, there was no sign of her boyfriend. The bathroom was dark, so she simply ignored the room on her way past it to her own bedroom. "What are you doing in here?" she asked. Jared was looking at the posters on her wall.

"Just looking," Jared said with a coy smile. "I was trying to figure out what kind of a child that you were. What did Toby say?"

"He told me some completely absurd story about how you're the…" Sarah broke off with a slight giggle. "King of the Goblins." She laughed; Jared did not join in with her mirth, and only gave her a stony-faced look. "Oh, come on. It's crazy, right? I mean, you're some insane king who goes around and kidnaps babies and makes the older sister wish them away? Besides, Goblins are supposed to be ugly, and you are incredibly handsome."

"Careful, precious," Jared said with a sly smile as he stalked closer to Sarah. "If you keep saying stuff like that, it might go to my head." Sarah wrapped her arms around Jared's neck and pressed herself close to him.

"Mm, what'll you do if that happens?"

Instead of giving a verbal answer, Jared simply pressed his lips to Sarah's in an overly passionate kiss. They stayed locked in their embrace for several minutes.

"Toby? Sarah? Jared? Who wants dessert!" Irene called from downstairs. Sarah pulled away reluctantly from Jared, who kissed the corner of her mouth a couple more times before they pulled away from each other completely.

"I've never made out with anybody in my old bedroom before," Sarah whispered as they walked downstairs.

"Would you like to do something else in it? Later?" Jared asked with a sly smile.

"Mm, yes," Sarah said and returned Jared's sly look with one of her own. "But we're going to have to be quiet, though."

"We were going to have to be quiet either way," Jared told her. "I'll come to you after your parents have gone to bed."

* * *

"I still can't believe that my parents accepted that we'd both stay the night, but expect us to sleep in separate rooms," Sarah grumbled as Jared slipped into her room. The entire house was completely dark and silent, as it was after 11 PM.

"Maybe they just don't want for us to do anything where Toby might hear," Jared said. He put his knee on the side of Sarah's old twin bed, next to where she was sitting with her feet on the floor. He leaned down and kissed her before Sarah held her arms up. Jared grabbed the hem of the over-sized t-shirt that she slept in and yanked it over her head. Then, he trailed his hands down the front of her shoulders, across her collar bone, and down to her breasts, where he paused briefly to tweak her nipples. Jared leaned over and started to suck and nuzzle at her left breast; Sarah let out a breathy moan and leaned back on the bed until Jared was forced to crawl on top of her in order to continue his actions.

Jared eventually moved on from Sarah's breasts and started to leave a trail of wet kisses and light nips down her stomach and lower abdomen. "Wait," Sarah panted when Jared started to take her panties off. Jared looked up at her. "Let's be quick tonight; Toby or my parents might hear something."

"Alright," Jared agreed in a hushed voice. He yanked her panties off with one solid motion, grabbed her hips, and quickly managed to spin them around so that Jared was lying on his back. Sarah put her hand on Jared's bare chest and slowly started to grind her hips into Jared's crotch; his erection twitched under her, and they both bit back breathy moans. "I can't wait any longer, precious," Jared growled after a moment of Sarah's lap dance.

Jared handed Sarah a condom from the pocket of his lounge pants, and she climbed off from his lap so that he could pull his pants down. Sarah helped him to pull them off the rest of the way before she eagerly tore open the condom package and quickly rolled the protection on over his penis. Then, she climbed back onto his lap and sunk down onto his hard penis.

She let out a breathy moan as Jared filled her completely. Then, she braced her hands on his chest before she started to resume her hip movements from earlier, but with an even more intimate twist.

"Lean back, precious," Jared whispered to her. Sarah stilled for a moment before she put her hands on the tops of Jared's thighs and then she continued. Jared reached up and cupped Sarah's breasts; he ran his thumbs over her nipples before he leaned up and gently took her right nipple between his teeth. Then, he trailed his hands down Sarah's sides, before he moved a hand through the dark curls between Sarah's legs and started to rub at Sarah's clit.

Sarah jerked slightly as Jared's fingers brushed across her overly sensitive clit, and bit her lip hard to keep herself from moaning out loud. Jared began to murmur something under his breath over and over. From the few words that Sarah was able to catch in her haze of completely sexual ecstasy, she thought that it sounded like he was speaking in Norwegian again. But he didn't offer any translation or explanation, and since he was still rubbing his fingers over her clitoris, she found little reason to care at the moment.

She stilled abruptly; her mouth formed a quiet O and her entire body shook. She dug her fingers into Jared's thighs, but he grasped her hip tightly and scrunched his eyes closed and roughly bit his lip as he tried to remain silent throughout his own orgasm. Sarah finally slumped forward over Jared, her cheek resting against his chest.

"Min dyrebare, min dronning," (1) Jared whispered as he ran a hand through Sarah's hair.

"Stay," she whispered.

"I'm not going anywhere," Jared replied just as softly. He wrapped his arms around Sarah and she was lulled to sleep by the slowing beat of Jared's heart.

* * *

When Sarah awoke, she knew at once that she was surrounded by warmth and love. She smiled sleepily without opening her eyes and snuggled in deeper to Jared's chest, unwilling to leave the comfort anytime soon.

"Good morning, precious," Jared murmured from beneath her. He started to gently stroke her hair. Sarah frowned— there was something off about his voice this morning. She inhaled deeply, and continued to frown— his smell was also off. And it wasn't just the smell of sex combined with the familiar smell of her childhood bedroom. It was just…

Sarah had no words for it. It was like the smell of a fairytale, come to life.

She opened her eyes and looked down at the man who lay under her. "It's you," she gasped. She scrambled backwards until she fell off the edge of the bed and landed roughly on the floor.

"Yes, it's me," Jared said with a frown. "Are you oh-"

"D-don't talk to me!" Sarah hissed as she scrambled to her feet. She wrapped her arm defensively around her breasts and covered her crotch with her hand.

"Preci-"

"Don't fucking call me that, you creep!" Sarah spat at him. "I don't know what kind of sick game that you're playing, but this was low, even for you!"

"It's not my fault if you didn't remember me," Jareth said as he stood. Sarah's gaze was drawn to his penis, which swung semi-erect between his legs. Her face flushed and she looked pointedly up at the ceiling. "Although, I'm not quite sure why you'd think that I'd hurt you now." He stalked closer to Sarah; she took two steps back for every one step forward that he took, but then she ran out of room and her back hit the wall. Jareth got close enough to Sarah ensure that she wouldn't duck out to the side, but not quite close enough to touch her. "After all, precious, I finally have you right where I want you."

"I… I want you to leave," Sarah stammered out.

"Alright."

"R-right now!"

"Alright."

"And don't come back! I don't want to see you at the apartment or here with my family again!"

Jareth took several careful steps away from Sarah, his hands out to show her that he meant her no harm. "If that is your wish, precious," he said slowly.

"It is," Sarah told him sternly. Jareth threw her a crystal, and as Sarah scrambled away from the thing, Jareth vanished. The crystal landed harmlessly on the carpet, and after a moment, Sarah picked up her night shirt, which was discarded on the floor from the night before, and used it to pick up the crystal. It didn't appear to be anything special— the only thing that Sarah saw in it was a distorted view of whatever she looked at through it.

Sarah sat down heavily on the edge of her bed and heaved a deep sigh as she turned the crystal every which way in order to figure out what it was for.

* * *

1) Min dyrebare, min dronning = my precious, my queen.

Also, it's more google translate; let me know if this isn't correct.


	7. Chapter 7

I'd appreciate it if somebody could point out any grammatical errors! Please and thank you!

* * *

"I'm sorry; I have to go," Sarah exclaimed as she ran downstairs.

"Sarah, wa…" Irene started as her step-daughter flew past her on her way to the door. "Where's Jared? Is he still asleep?"

"Jared's gone," Sarah whispered as she paused briefly by the front door. Then, she opened the door, ran outside, got into her car, and peeled away from her childhood home.

After she'd driven a couple of miles on the freeway, she pulled off, pulled into the first parking lot she saw, and completely broke down.

* * *

"God. Fucking. DAMMIT!" Jareth swore loudly as he paced around his throne room. He kicked a goblin that didn't move away from the Fae's way fast enough, and then kicked at a chicken just for good measure. "I was this close!" He held his index finger and thumb a breadth away from one another. "This fucking close! And then she just had to break whatever memory spell was over her and remember everything! At the most inopportune time ever!"

He heaved an annoyed sigh as he sunk down onto his throne and buried his head in his hands. "There's no way that she's ever going to make a wish now. I've completely fucked everything up this time."

* * *

Ashley knocked hesitantly on Sarah's door, and then knocked harder after she received no response. "Oh, hello, Ms. Pace," Mrs. Kelley said as she poked her head out from her own apartment. "I'm very glad that you came quickly."

"Yes. The message that you left me was… exceptionally worrying," Ashley said.

"I've never seen Sarah like this before. Wait there for a second, would you? I have a spare key that Sarah gave me." The elderly lady vanished back into her apartment for a moment, and Ashley tried knocking again on Sarah's door. Then, Mrs. Kelley returned with a key, and Ashley let herself in. "You can just keep the key for now, dear," she said when Ashley tried to return the key.

"Alright, thanks," Ashley said. She slipped it into her pocket as she stepped inside her friend's apartment. "Sarah? Are you home?" The apartment was dark, the blinds drawn tightly against the late-afternoon sun. Ashley quickly realized that Sarah was not in the living room/kitchen area, so she navigated around the furniture to Sarah's bedroom. "Sarah?" Ashley paused on the threshold into the other room.

"Go away Ashley," Sarah moaned from the bed.

"Come on, babe; tell me what happened."

"Jare…" Sarah trailed off, uncertain of how to even finish the simple name.

"Do you need me to cut his balls off and feed them to the cheating bastard?"

"He didn't cheat on me."

"Of course he didn't; the guy would have to be completely blind to cheat on you," Ashley said. She walked into the room and flopped face-first onto the end of Sarah's bed. Then, she wriggled up the bed until she came into contact with her friend. "Now then, are you going to tell me what the douche did to you or am I going to have to force feed you Ben and Jerry's until you squeal like a pig?"

"I… I honestly don't know," Sarah whispered.

"So, the two of you got into a fight over… nothing?"

"No! It's really complicated and I… I don't fucking remember, but I know that he's nothing but a lying, manipulative scum-bucket who… who…"

"Deserves to have his balls cut off and then fed to him?"

"No…" Sarah said with a slight giggle. She sniffled loudly.

"Well, why don't you start off with what you can tell me," Ashley said.

"His name isn't Jared Garfield, for starters."

"Ooh, ouch."

"A-and… And I've met him before."

"Okay. Does it have something to do with the name that he assumed?"

"Um, sort of. I guess. I don't really know; I'm not a mind reader, Ash!"

"Okay. Does the fact that you two met before have anything to do with this?"

"Yes, but again, I don't really know why." Sarah let out a low moan and clutched her head between her hands. "Can we stop talking about this? Or anything, really? I've had such a major migraine since I woke up this morning."

"Yes, of course. Do you need anything? Some water or asprin, maybe?" Ashley asked as she slid off Sarah's bed.

"I took some Tylenol shortly after I got home this morning, and then I shut all of the curtains and turned off the lights and tried to get some sleep, but it hasn't really helped."

"Have you eaten anything? You know how my mom gets those really bad headaches when she hasn't eaten for a couple of hours."

"No, but I'm not really hungry."

"You should eat something. I'll go to that cafe on the other side of town that you like and get you some of those-"

"I don't think that I could really stomach anything heavy right now. Maybe just some Ben and Jerry's."

"Okay! I'll be back in a little bit, then!" Ashley quickly left Sarah's apartment and softly shut the door behind her.

"How is she?" Mrs. Kelley asked.

"She's… I don't know. She's upset over something that Jared did, but I couldn't get much out of her," Ashley said softly.

"She seemed so happy yesterday; she and Jared were going to go visit her family," Mrs. Kelley said with a touch of sorrow in her voice.

"Well, I'm going to go make an emergency ice-cream run," Ashley said with a cocky smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Nothing mends a broken heart quite like my two main men: Ben and Jerry!"

* * *

Ashley was at the store for maybe about fifteen minutes, but she returned with four cartons of ice-cream. "Sarah? I'm back!" Ashley called out softly as she opened the door using the spare key Mrs. Kelley had given her earlier. Sarah was sitting on the sofa in the dark, and was holding up the crystal that Jareth had tossed at her before he'd vanished. "Hey, what's that?" Ashley asked as she put the bag down on the counter.

"I… I don't know," Sarah said hesitantly. "Jare… d… gave it to me before he left." She stumbled a little over if she should call him Jared or Jareth, but reverted back to his "human" name. Ashley grabbed a carton of ice-cream, put the rest into Sarah's freezer, grabbed two spoons from the dish drainer, and hopped onto the couch next to her friend.

"Can I see?" Ashley said as best as she could with a spoon in her mouth. Sarah exchanged the crystal for the carton of ice-cream, which she opened with ease while Ashley turned the crystal this way and that. "What is it?"

"I don't know. It doesn't appear to be anything," Sarah said as she dug into the frosty treat.

"If it wasn't a sphere, I'd say that it's some sort of paperweight," Ashley said as she helped herself to some of the frozen dessert as well. "And it looks like it would be super fragile, but at the same time, it feels super sturdy."

"It is," Sarah agreed. "I've already dropped it several times since he gave it to me, and once in the bathroom. I think that it did more damage to the linoleum than the floor did to it!" Ashley turned it every which way as she absently licked off her spoon. "I just wish that Jared had explained what this was before he'd left."

In a heartbeat, the crystal completely fogged over before an image filled the sphere. It was of Jareth, as he had been ten years ago when Sarah had last seen him. He was alone, and sitting on a stone windowsill. He had a crystal like the one that Ashley held now in his hands and was using it to spy on Sarah as she made her way through the Labyrinth.

"Wow, Sarah! I think you said the-" Ashley started, but broke off when she realized that Sarah was not paying attention to the image inside the crystal. "Sarah?" Sarah's head slumped forward listlessly. Ashley hesitantly reached a hand out to touch her friend's shoulder, but at the briefest touch, Sarah started to convulse erratically. "Oh my god! Sarah!"

"Do not touch her," a cool voice spoke from behind Ashley. She looked startled over her shoulder at Jared; he was wearing exceptionally tight pants, a billowy shirt, and boots.

Ashley briefly thought for a moment that he looked like he'd just been about to preform Shakespeare, but quickly replaced the thought with, "Where in the world did you come from?"

"That's not important right now," Jared said coolly as he marched past Ashley and quickly knelt down by Sarah's side. She was still having her weird seizure. "There's something very wrong with Sarah, and I don't plan to just sit by and do nothing while she mentally deteriorates into a babbling lunatic." He pressed his hand to Sarah's forehead; Sarah slid forward and would have fallen onto her coffee table had Jared not caught her.

"S-stop! What are you doing?!" Ashley exclaimed as Jared quickly picked Sarah up and stood.

"I'm taking her to a place where she can get help," Jared said simply.

"She's really fucking pissed at you, you know."

"I'm angry at myself as well."

And then Jared vanished; Ashley was left with some ice-cream and only about a million questions.

* * *

"How is she?" Jareth asked as his best healer stepped out from his personal bed chambers.

"I've managed to stabilize her for the time being, but I don't know what returning here here will do, or what might set her off again," the healer said. "Although I must warn you that I'm not a mental doctor; my spells mainly deal with the physical healing, not the mental. I was able to stabilize her by fortifying the block in her mind, but I don't know how long that it's going to last. If you ask me, just being back here might trigger another seizure."

"I've already asked my mother to come and look at Sarah," Jareth said quickly. "She should be here soon."

"Good, I'm glad," the healer said. The corners of his mouth twitched, but he stopped himself from smiling, as if remembering that this was a very serious situation.

"Although I'm not quite sure what she'll be able to do. I've already had several conversations with her about this, and she's just as much at a loss as I am."

"Sarah is resting now, and it would probably be in her best interest if she continued to do so," the healer said. He scowled even more as he looked at the Goblin King. "No strenuous activities, and keep her meals light."

"Yes, of course," Jareth agreed.

"You know where I am if you need me for anything else, sire," the healer said. He gave a slight bow to Jareth before he vanished.

Sarah didn't want to wake up. She was warm and in the most comfortable bed that she'd ever been in her entire life. Except…

Except for the fact that Sarah had no memory of how she had gotten into bed, or even where she was. The last thing that she remembered was talking with Ashley about the thing that Jared/Jareth had given her.

She opened her eyes slowly, as if even her eyelids were protesting Sarah being awake, and then looked around her with confusion. She was lying in an overly large, four-poster bed with heavy, red velvet drapes and a matching bed spread. The room was gigantic, and Sarah couldn't even see most of it from her prone position in bed, but over to her right, there was a roaring fire in a massive, overly-ornate fireplace, and two red, wing-backed chairs were sitting in front of it.

"Hello, Sarah," a gentle voice said, which interrupted Sarah's observation of the room she was in. A middle-aged, blonde woman walked over to the bedside, and sat down on a chair that appeared out of nowhere.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Amael, but you might best know me as-"

"Amanda," Sarah whispered.

Amael offered Sarah a small smile. "Yes, that's right. I'm Jareth's mother."

Sarah wanted to ask her if she'd been in on Jareth's ruse, but bit her lip to stop herself. "Where am I?"

"Before you say anything, I must please ask you to hear me out," Amael started gently.

"Where am I?" Sarah asked with a bit of a bite to her words.

"You're in Jareth's kingdom," Amael said gently. "Please, hear me out. My son has discovered that somebody has placed a very serious mental block on your memories of him and your time here."

"My time… When I was here before?" Sarah asked with confusion.

"You were here about ten years ago. If I remember what my son said correctly, you came here with your younger brother?"

"T-toby?" Sarah said slowly. "I-I didn't even remember Jared… Jareth… until this morning. I just thought that I'd seen him somewhere before, like on the subway or something. But then I… I just woke up and I remembered that he was the Goblin King, and that I completely hated him with every fiber of my being. And I thought, even though I didn't know why, that he'd only come to me because he… he wanted to trick me again." Sarah's fingers scrunched up the soft velvet bedspread before they aimlessly smoothed it out again.

"Jareth thinks that some part of the mental block chipped away after your brother told you about why he disliked the man that you brought home," Amael said.

"I thought that Toby was being silly," Sarah said. "I used to tell him all sorts of silly stories when I still lived at home. But then I woke up, and there was Jareth…" She looked up at Amael, who her son took after in the looks department. "What is this mental block? Why can't Jareth just snap his fingers and make me remember?"

"Don't you think that if he could have, he would have done so already?" Amael said with a sigh. "Sarah, I have been alive for over 5 thousand years, and I've spent a great portion of that time studying anything that I could about magic. So believe me when I say that I've never seen anything quite like this before."

"Why did Jareth bring me here?"

"You had a massive seizure, honey," Amael told her softly. The older woman grabbed Sarah's hand and rubbed her thumb over Sarah's knuckles. "He thought that it would be for the best to bring you here to try and figure out what is wrong with you. After all, magic was the cause of your problems, so magic will probably be the solution to them as well." Sarah frowned and stared blankly at an overly large and ornate tapestry that hung on the wall on the other side of the room. The only sound in the room was the occasional pop and hiss from the fire; Amael continued to run her thumb over Sarah's knuckles.

"Where is he? Jareth, I mean."

"I am not certain, but I can find him if you-"

"No," Sarah said sternly. "Tell him that he's an ass and that I still hate him."

"I'll carry your message, and warn him not to bother you while you're resting," Amael said with a slight smile. "We aren't quite certain what triggered your seizure earlier, so Jareth's healer warned against strenuous activities. And right now, I think that just seeing Jareth would stress you out too much and cause you to have another seizure." Amael released Sarah's hand and stood; her chair vanished in the instant that she started to move her legs. "Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

"I guess that I could eat something; I don't think that I've eaten all day, but I'm not overly hungry," Sarah said as she pushed herself up onto her elbows.

"Please, stay in bed and rest," Amael told her gently but firmly. "I will bring you something." She vanished, and Sarah took the opportunity to finish looking around the room. All of the windows were covered with the same, heavy, red velvet fabric that was also on the bed— it was nearly impossible to tell the time of day from them. In a corner over to Sarah's left, there was the same heavy writing desk that had been in Jared's apartment. His typewriter was even sitting on it, and it was covered with papers, just like the last time Sarah had seen it.

Sarah scowled as she pieced this information together. If Jared's writing desk was here, than there were some pretty heavy implications that this was his personal bedchamber. It was totally just like the creep to put her in his bed, especially when she was in an overly vulnerable state as she was in now.

Even though Sarah's head still hurt, it was nothing at all like what it had been earlier. Sarah suspected that this was the "hungry headache" that Ashley had been talking about. As if just mentioning food had unleashed some hidden trigger inside of Sarah, she found that she was more hungry than she'd first thought.

Amael came back a moment later with a tray; on it was a bowl of soup, some toast, a cup of water, and a cup of orange juice. "Is that it?" Sarah asked with a frown as she sat up in bed.

"Healer's orders," Amael said as she sat the tray down over Sarah's lap. "But if you finish this and you're still hungry, there's plenty more where this came from." The chair from before appeared once more and the older woman sat down. Sarah began to eat.

"Did Jareth tell you what he was doing? I mean, with me."

"Some of it, yes," Amael said with a small smile. "After all, why do you think that he wanted for the two of us to talk?"

"I don't know anymore," Sarah said absently.

"When he first asked me to talk with you, it was only in the way that a son would ask his mother about a girl that he likes," Amael said after a brief pause. Sarah looked up to Amael.

"How do you know? Did he tell you?"

"Sweetie, I'm over 5 thousand years old, and Jareth is the youngest of 12," Amael said dryly. "I know a thing or two about romances and when a boy likes a girl."

"Oh. …Right."

"But after Jareth discovered the block on your memories, he wanted for me to look into things. It was a bit difficult to do magic through the… um… communication device, but I was able to get a sense of what he meant."

"But now you know more, right? You can fix me?"

"Much like my son, if I knew how to fix you, honey, I would have."

"Is it really that serious?"

"Yes." Amael heaved a deep sigh. "But now that I've got more information to go off of, it should narrow down the search just a little bit more." She paused for a moment. "Although, I think that Jareth is more concerned now with figuring out who did this, and why."

"Well…" Sarah started, and then paused. Amael gave her an expectant look until the younger woman continued. "If Jareth can figure out who did it, then can't he just demand that they remove the spell from me?"

"I think that that's probably what Jareth is thinking as well," Amael said with a small smile. "Although, if somebody was strong enough to put this kind of a spell on you in the first place, I don't think that they're going to be taken down so easily as my son seems to think."

"I don't know anything about what sort of magic that you use here, but you're probably right."

"Are you finished? Do you want anything more?"

"Um, no, I'm alright," Sarah said. "I'm actually pretty tired right now, so I'd like to get some rest."

"Yes, of course, honey," Amael said as she grabbed the tray— Sarah had finished everything. "If you need anything, I'll post a goblin outside the door. Just give a shout, and then they'll come and get me."

Amael vanished, and Sarah restlessly kicked back the blankets on the bed. She wasn't as tired as she'd implied to Amael, but she had wanted to be alone to think through all of what she had just been told.

Sarah still couldn't remember what Jareth had done to her in the past, only just that she didn't trust him. She didn't even know where Jareth's "kingdom" was, or why a goblin would be stationed outside of the door.

On some level, Sarah wished that she hadn't remembered who Jared really was, because she still found him completely irresistible. Sarah blushed and let out a low moan as she remembered exactly how he'd made her feel the night before she'd remembered who he was. She sunk down low in the bed and pulled the blankets over her mouth and nose in complete mortification— she only hoped that Jareth wasn't listening in on her, because then he'd probably start to get cocky.

But, even though Sarah still had no real reason beyond her hate and general distrust of Jareth, she knew that it would likely only be a matter of time until she got her memories back. And something inside of her warned her that Jareth would likely not survive that when the time came.

* * *

Thank you for reading! Reviews loved!


	8. Chapter 8

Please let me know if there are any grammatical errors! I'm only human, so there's bound to be some.

Thanks again to KieraPSI for the grammatical help!

* * *

Jareth heaved a deep sigh as he stared into the crystal that held the image of Sarah. "Obsessing over her isn't going to make her stop hating you, you know."

"Mother, you startled me," Jareth whispered as his mother stepped out from the shadows of his study and walked over to her son.

"I apologize; it was not my intention to do so."

"And I wasn't obsessing over her," Jareth protested softly. "I was just checking up on her. I've been working hard to research this, and I needed a break." Amael gave her youngest son a droll look. "Okay, maybe I'm obsessing over her a little. Never before have I been so close to my goal of having Sarah and yet so far!"

"It has not escaped my notice whatsoever that you've installed Sarah in your personal chambers," Amael said after a moment. "Have you slept at all since you've brought her here?"

"I fell asleep at my desk a couple hours ago," Jareth said sheepishly. He motioned to his ornate writing desk, which had previously been in first his apartment, and then where it normally sat in his bed chambers. He'd only moved it to his study after Sarah had made it clear that she didn't want to see him.

"You aren't going to help Sarah if you can't even take care of yourself, honey," Amael said as she reached over and brushed a strand of hair out of Jareth's eyes.

"I'll get some sleep in a bit, I promise," Jareth said earnestly. He grabbed the papers on his desk, tapped them against the wooden surface to get them straightened, and then handed them to his mother. "Will you please give this to Sarah?"

"Why? What is it?"

"She'll know what it is," Jareth said softly as he turned away from Amael. She raised her eyebrow but didn't comment, then she looked down at what Jareth had given her.

"Is this your latest novel?"

"Yes."

"You haven't even let me read it yet."

"Because it's for Sarah, not you. Honestly, mother. If Sarah didn't completely hate my guts right now, I'd go and deliver it to her myself."

"Sometimes, I have to remind myself that you're over 2 thousand years old, rather than the fourteen year old brat that you sometimes act like. I wish that I'd been more strict with you, but you're my baby." She moved to brush the hair out of Jareth's face, but he moved away.

"Mother! Are you going to deliver it to Sarah or will I have to find somebody else to do it instead?"

With an annoyed scowl, Amael teleported from Jareth's study and reappeared in his bedroom, where Sarah had been installed for the past two days following her seizure. The young woman in question looked up from her seat by one of the many windows in the room. "I'm really starting to grow out of my mind with boredom, being locked in here all day long," Sarah said with a scowl of her own. "I'm feeling very alright, really! Can I please leave?"

"I'll ask the healer about it, but in the meantime, this is for you," Amael said as she handed over the papers. Sarah took them, looked over the one that was on top, and then gave Amael a questioning look.

"This is from Jareth?"

"It is," Amael agreed. Sarah's scowl deepened, and for a moment, Amael was afraid that Sarah would reject the draft. But instead, Sarah settled back into her chair and started to read. "I'll just go ask the healer if he thinks that it's alright for you to leave the room."

* * *

Sarah trailed her fingers down the page that she'd just turned to— it was all warped, like it had been wet, and then allowed to dry, although the ink was not smeared at all. Although, Sarah mused, that if they lived in a world where people could put massive blocks on people's memories, then having waterproof ink probably wasn't too much of a question. Although why they didn't have waterproof paper was a whole other question.

She was so intent on her observation of the page that she didn't notice that Amael had returned until the older woman cleared her throat loudly. "I'm sorry, I was…" She trailed off and held the page up for Amael to look at. "What happened here? It looks like it got wet, but none of the other pages are like this."

"Jareth did say that he'd fallen asleep at his desk," Amael said with a faint smirk. "He probably drooled all over it."

"What? Jared does not drool in his sleep," Sarah said with a quiet laugh.

"Maybe you weren't paying enough attention to him while he slept then," Amael said. "When he was a boy, he would often crawl into the bed of his next older brother, Ikhael. Oh, Ikhael would always complain about how Jareth drooled all over the place. There would be massive pools all over the pillows and sheets."

"I just find it a little hard to imagine a grown man drooling this much," Sarah said as she shook the sheet of paper.

"No, you're probably right," Amael said with a faint smile. "He probably knocked over a glass of water or something. You've seen how he just… throws the finished pages where ever. Some things never change." Sarah put the pages down on the window sill and stood to face Amael properly.

"I'm sorry," she said as she absently smoothed out the skirt that the older woman had brought for her to wear. "Did you talk to the healer?"

"I did, and we had a lengthy conversation with Jareth about if it would be wise for you to go out," Amael said slowly. "While the healer believes that you have properly recovered from your earlier seizure, we're all worried about your risk for another one. Which is why we had to talk to Jareth, since he's the only one who knows anything about your time spent here. He had a bunch of off-limit places that might trigger another seizure. He also stipulated that you should not just wander around the castle, in case something happens."

"I'm alright with both of those conditions, assuming that I don't have to see Jareth," Sarah said.

"I thought that you might," Amael said with a small smile. She offered Sarah her arm. "Would you like to walk through the gardens a little bit? I think that some fresh air might do wonders for you."

"Yes, alright," Sarah agreed as she accepted Amael's arm. They walked to the other side of the room, where the main door was. For the duration of Sarah's two-day stay, she'd tried multiple times to open the door, but it had always been locked. The only other place that Sarah could go aside from the bedroom was to the connected bathroom. But now, the door opened before Amael could so much as touch the wood or the golden door handle.

The room did not open up onto a hallway like Sarah had expected for it to, but rather, out into a lush and beautiful garden. "Wha…" Sarah gasped. She looked behind her as they left the bedroom— she could still see into the room, but it looked like the room didn't quite fit into the exterior of the castle.

Then, the door slammed closed and simply vanished completely, leaving behind nothing but smooth, grey stone and a large stained-glass window where it had been. "What?" Sarah gasped.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you this, but this castle— this entire kingdom that Jareth created for himself— is completely magic. It senses the needs, wants, and desires of anybody in the kingdom, and does its best to see to them. So, when we both had the desire to leave the bedroom and go to the gardens, the door opened out onto the gardens. Oh sure, we could have gone down the hall, downstairs, and out one of the doors, but that would have taken at least fifteen minutes."

"Well, that's handy," Sarah said blankly as she looked around the garden more intently now that she wasn't so surprised over the vanishing bedroom. "I sometimes wish that things worked like that… um… ever." Amael laughed softly at that.

"Yes, it does come in handy sometimes, but you will probably soon find out that there are some downsides to it as well."

"Like what?" Sarah asked as she looked up at the older woman.

"Well," Amael said slowly; she dragged the word out for at least three syllables as she stalled for time in order to come up with an example. "Oh! When you were in the room, and you wanted out, were you able to leave?"

"No; the door was always locked."

"Well, that's not to say that Jareth or I used a key in order to lock it," Amael said with a small smile. "We simply desired for you to not leave the room, so the door didn't open for you."

"But, I wanted to leave the room."

"Yes, but the castle overrode your desires for what Jareth and I both wanted. Jareth is, after all, the master of the castle, in more ways than one."

"Well, maybe that makes sense in this one case, because not even I want to have another seizure… even if I don't remember having the first one," Sarah said hesitantly after thinking this over. "But that doesn't exactly seem overly fair."

"As I said, there is some downside to it," Amael said with an absent shrug. They'd been walking absently along the twisting, turning, dividing and rejoining path while they talked, but then they paused when they got to a small, stone fountain that sat in what appeared to be a dead-end of the garden. "Even in the garden, it would appear that the kingdom is twisting around us at all times," Amael said as she shook her head.

"Why, where are we?"

"Look around us," Amael said simply. "We're no where." Sarah looked around, and eventually spotted a tower of the castle in the distance.

"We couldn't have been walking for more than two minutes," Sarah said with a look of complete shock on her face.

"As I said, the very kingdom has a way of doing this as well," Amael said. "I know that I wasn't thinking of coming to this particular place, and you wouldn't even know about it to want to come here in the first place."

"We can just go back," Sarah said as she turned to face the castle again. They continued walking, and, after a couple of minutes, the castle loomed large and directly in front of them like it had when they'd first stepped out into the gardens. "This has been… overly exciting. I think that I'm just going to go back and finish reading what Jareth gave me." A door popped up at the wall, although it didn't open. "Oh, do you think that Jareth would handle constructive criticism on his works well?"

"He… isn't exactly known for keeping a cool head to anything negative that anybody has to say about him," Amael said hesitantly. "But, I think that if you were to approach him and tell him your issues with his works yourself, he might take it more favorably."

Sarah paused to consider this for a moment; she bit her lip before she looked up at Amael again. "Okay," she finally said. The door opened, and Sarah walked back into Jareth's bedroom.

"I… have other things that I need to attend to," Amael said; she didn't follow Sarah into the room. "I will most likely be back to bring you your supper."

"Alright," Sarah said as she looked down at the loose papers that sat on the windowsill, exactly like she'd left them. She heard the door shut, and looked up, a little startled— she was alone in the room. She took the papers over to one of the chairs by the fire, and curled up in it.

The first thing that went through Sarah's mind as soon as she'd sat down was that the chair smelt like Jareth. The smell that had assaulted her nose when she'd woken up the other morning only to realize that her lover was not who she'd thought he was. It was a completely awful smell, it was just different than what Jared smelt like. Sarah pressed her nose into the corner of the chair, where the back met one of the "wings", and inhaled deeply.

No, it was actually quite nice, in its own way. Although Sarah had no words to describe the smell itself, it brought forth memories of happier times.

Sarah frowned as she pulled her nose away, a little embarrassed that she'd practically stuffed it into the chair. The rest of Jareth's room did not carry much of a scent, and she would know, because she'd spent most of her time lying in the bed.

She then toed off the soft slippers that Amael had given her to wear, and tucked her feet under her. Sarah then tapped the papers against the arm of the chair before she started to read where she'd left off when Amael had come to her.

* * *

Jareth stood near the door of his personal bedroom and watched Sarah. He enjoyed the way that the fire lit up the natural highlights in her hair, and made her eyes glisten. She was completely focused on the couple of chapters that he'd given her earlier, and had no idea that he was even in the room, let alone watching her.

He thought that maybe it would be a bad idea to approach her like this, but when his mother had told him of Sarah's wish to discuss his novel, he just couldn't help himself— he had to be in her presence again. Even if she rejected him, it would somehow be worth it.

Throughout Jareth's years, he had studied humans and the Aboveworld closely. Even though humans were the reason why his kingdom— and the rest of the Fae— now resided in a different realm than the humans, he was still completely fascinated by them. While Fae were the kind of creatures who would often remain static for long periods of time, due to their near-immortal life-spans, humans were constantly looking for ways that they could change, not only themselves, but the world around them.

It was how he'd been able to maintain his cover as Jared Garfield— because he knew about practically everything that humans did, from Monica and Bill to Rachel and Ross. (1)

"Good evening, precious," Jareth whispered as he stepped out from the shadows.

"Oh," Sarah exclaimed as he drew closer to where she sat. He'd expected screaming, harsh words, for her to jump from the chair, and throw his draft every which way. He had not been anticipating for her to look up at him with an expectant look.

"What?" he finally asked her. "Where's your ranting and raving? Where's that inflamed rage that you had the other morning for me?"

"I don't…" Sarah shook her head. "I barely even remember you. You kidnapped Toby, and that's pretty much it. And I'm not even certain if that's one of my own memories or some side effect of…" She made a motion towards her head. "Or if it's just something that I dreamt up after the story that Toby told me." She looked down at the papers in her hands. "I think that most of my anger was more about how you lied to me. I mean, what's real about you? Is any of this?" She gestured around her.

"This is real, I can assure you, precious," Jareth told her gently as he grasped her hand between his own. "As is my love for you."

"I feel like I should tell you that you can't possibly love me because you've only known me for a couple of weeks now," Sarah whispered as she pulled her hand free; Jareth let her. "But I also get the feeling that there's way more to the two of us than just a chance encounter in an elevator one morning." She chuckled slightly. "But I guess that it probably wasn't as much of a chance encounter though, was it?"

"I might have caused a bit of a black-out in the apartment building," Jareth said as he sat down in the other chair. "But it's a rather unfortunate side-effect of using my magic in your world. But, you didn't not appear overly angry at me for making you late to work that evening."

"No, I wasn't late," Sarah said with an absent shake of her head.

"I'm glad. I know how important your career is to you, even if you often feel under appreciated. Also, I don't want you to worry about your job while you're here, which is why I called the school and told them that you had a family emergency, and would likely be gone for some time."

Sarah stared absently into the fire for a long time. Jareth was content to let her remain silent, so long as she wasn't overly mad at him anymore. "What would have happened to me if you'd never come back?"

"It's likely that you would have lived the rest of your life without ever once remembering," Jareth whispered. "Without anything to trigger the break of the spell, you probably wouldn't have even realized that your memories were missing in the first place. After all, you seemed perfectly happy without them." Sarah's frown deepened.

"Would I have been okay with carrying out my mediocre life the way that it was going?" Sarah whispered, more to herself than to Jareth. "To continue on in what's pretty much a dead-end job, to eventually settle for that dull man who works part-time at the library, just so that I wouldn't be alone anymore?"

"I heard you, you know," Jareth whispered. "The Friday before we met. You'd been to the bar with Ashley and you said-"

"I wish that I could find the one," Sarah finished. "Yes, I remember." She looked over to Jareth sharply. "Is that why you came? Because you're my soul mate?"

"Do you honestly believe in any of that stuff?" Jareth asked; he was trying overly hard to keep from laughing.

"I don't know; you live in a magical castle with goblins for servants. You tell me if soul mates exist," Sarah said with a frown. Jareth simply raised his eyebrows at her. "They don't?"

"No. It's just foolish nonsense dreamt up by silly humans in an attempt to alleviate their everlasting loneliness."

"Oh," Sarah said blankly. "So you just thought that I was hot and decided to follow me around? Is that it?"

"Well," Jareth started, but then broke off. Although he wouldn't have put it so bluntly, that was pretty much it.

But, as he thought on the issue, he realized that Sarah's beauty wasn't even one of the reasons why he'd started to give her more than a passing glance as she'd run through the Labyrinth. It was her stubborn nature and her crafty ability to think along the lines of a Fae that had made him start to pull out all of the stops.

"No. There's more to you than your beauty," Jareth said. "After all, if the only thing that I was interested in was a woman's beauty, I likely would have been married a long time ago."

"Oh," Sarah said, but she seemed overly happy by this answer, even if she didn't exactly put her joy into words. Jareth stood then and offered Sarah his hand.

"Shall we go down to dinner now, precious?" he asked. Sarah accepted his hand without hesitation, and stood. She paused for a moment to pull her shoes back on, before she allowed Jareth to lead her out of the room. Instead of the door opening to the dining room, it instead opened up into a hall; a grand, curved staircase lead down to the beautiful, if not a bit dusty, formal dining room.

"Why didn't we just go directly to the dining room?" Sarah asked as they started down the stairs.

"Oh, don't be silly, Sarah," Amael said from the table. "My son always likes to make a bit of an entrance."

"Of course, but you know that you wouldn't have it any other way," Jareth said. They reached the bottom of the stairs and Jareth pulled out a chair for Sarah, across from his mother, before he sat down at the head of the table. The table was laden with every type of food imaginable, and then some.

"Why is there so much food? The three of us can't possibly be expected to eat all of this?" Sarah asked as she helped herself to a bit of everything within reach.

"No, but once again, it wouldn't be my Jareth if he didn't try to show off."

"Show off for who?" Sarah asked. She looked over to Jareth, who only gave her a coy smile before he offered her a bowl of fruit.

"Grapes?"

"I now have quite the list of people who I believe to be both powerful and vengeful enough to want to do something like this to Sarah," Amael said slowly after a moment of silence.

"And let me guess…" Jareth muttered under his breath.

"So I think that the best way to get all of them together would be to throw a ball!" Amael exclaimed with a look of pure glee on her face.

"Called it," Jareth muttered with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. Sarah giggled slightly.

"But how will that help? Wouldn't they just be angry to see me?" Sarah asked.

"Oh, that is my plan," Amael said with a coy smile that was exactly the same as her son's had been a moment earlier. "After all, only the person who did this to you will be exceptionally angry after Jareth announces his engagement."

Sarah started to cough on the bite of turkey that she'd just put into her mouth. "I'm sorry… did you just say his engagement?"

"Yes, of course. It's all a part of my ingenious plan." Amael started to ramble on about the preparations that she had to make even before she could send out the invitations, but Sarah was just flat-out glaring at the older woman. A second later, she jumped slightly as Jareth grabbed her hand under the table.

"Do not mind my mother, precious," Jareth whispered to her. "My mother gets carried away in her thoughts of throwing lavish balls, and doesn't really listen to the things that she says. Besides, it's just a ruse to lure out whoever did this to you."

"Yes, I know," Sarah whispered sadly as she looked down at her plate. "I think that I'm finished now, anyway." Jareth stood, and offered Sarah his hand, which she took.

"Sarah is tired, so I'll escort her back to her room now, mother," Jareth said as they started to leave the dining room. Once they could no longer see the lights from the crystal chandler, Jareth spun Sarah around and kissed her soundly.

"Jareth, wha-"

"Shh, my dear. I do believe that we've just become engaged," Jareth whispered as he pressed his hand gently to Sarah's cheek.

"I don't want to be engaged," Sarah said with a scowl.

"Is it really that bad to be engaged to me?"

"No, but I don't want to be engaged, full stop."

"I will give you all of the time that you need, precious. So long as you love me, fear me, do as I say, then I will…" Sarah collapsed, and started to shake violently. "Sarah!"

* * *

1) I think that it's maybe a couple of years early for the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but whatever.


	9. Chapter 9

I'm once again drawing from the completely dreadful Return to Labyrinth and borrowing some characters from the comic: Mizumi, Queen of Moraine, and her "daughters", Moulin and Drumlin. Aside from their names, their appearances, and their roles as the antagonists of Loophole, they will probably not resemble the characters from the comic much.

As with my previous eight chapters, this has not been proofread, so if you spot an glaring errors, please let me know so that I might fix them!

* * *

Sarah's awaking was much the same as it had been when she'd first woken up in Jareth's bed two days earlier. Her limbs felt overly heavy, as did her eyelids. When she finally managed to convince herself that she really should wake up, she looked around the room and instantly spotted Jareth, who was asleep in a chair by her bedside.

"Jareth," Sarah croaked; her voice was rough from disuse. She cleared her throat, which turned into a coughing fit, but her coughing woke Jareth.

"Sarah," Jareth whispered as he helped her sit up and drink from a glass of water that he had conjured up.

"What happened?" Sarah whispered after she'd had her fill of water.

"You had another seizure; this one was much worse than your first one. It was all that Amael, my healer, Sielel, and I could do to get it to stop." Jareth heaved a massive sigh, sunk down onto the chair that he'd been sitting on, and buried his head in his hands. "Sarah, this is all my fault. If I'd never come to you, then you wouldn't be like this."

"Jareth," Sarah started, her voice low. She started to push herself up, but Jareth jumped to his feet.

"Sarah, no, you had a massive seizure only a few hours ago; you need to rest!" Jareth snapped at her as he tried to push her back onto the bed, but she smacked his hand away.

"I'm not going to stop until you stop on your path of self-pity," Sarah growled in response. Jareth stilled with his hands hovering over Sarah, his eyes wide with shock. "The damage has already been done, and you can't just send me back now like this! We have to see this through! And excuse me if I'm the only one here who seems to have any desire to do that!"

"Yes, you're right," Jareth said. Sarah allowed him to push her back down onto the pillow and then he pulled the covers back over her chest. "I'm going to find whoever did this to you and punch them in the face for you."

"Excuse me, but I'm perfectly capable of punching somebody in the face, thank you very much," Sarah said with a firm scowl.

"Then I do believe that whoever did this to you will be black and blue by the time that we're finished with them," Jareth said with a small smile. Sarah turned her head to look fully at Jareth, who'd taken a seat once again.

"I wanted to talk to you about your latest book."

"Not right now, precious; you need your rest," Jareth told her gently. "There will be plenty of time to talk about anything that you want later."

"Yes, alright. Stay." Sarah's eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.

"As you wish."

Sarah gave a sleepy smile. "Rodents of unusual size?"

"I don't believe that they exist," Jareth replied with a small smile. (1)

* * *

"My mother is in full party-planning mode," Jareth said as he swept into his room. Sarah was standing on a small step while two female goblins pinned fabric around her.

"Milord, you should not be in here!" one of the goblins exclaimed.

"This is my room, and that is my fiancee," Jareth pointed out. "I'm perfectly allowed to look upon her as you pin up the dress."

"Ow!" Sarah protested as the other goblin jabbed a pin in too hard.

"I am so sorry, milady!" the goblin exclaimed before she moved around to Sarah's other side quickly.

"I'm surprised that Amael is going ahead with the ball, despite what happened," Sarah whispered.

"The ball is still some time off, and she has yet to even mail out the invitations," Jareth said. He sunk down into one of the chairs in front of the fire, which he'd spun around so that it faced Sarah. Jareth put his legs over one armrest and his head over the other and regarded Sarah. "Yes, I do believe that that color suits you well, precious."

"I told you, didn't I?" Sarah asked as she looked down at the rich, emerald green fabric that was slowly turning into a dress around her. "Ow!"

"You little shits!" Jareth roared.

"I'm so sorry, milord! I'll just go scrub the floors for the rest of the day!" the goblin who had jabbed Sarah a little too hard with a pin wailed. She ran out from the room in tears.

"You didn't have to yell at her," Sarah told Jareth with a scowl. "It was just an accident."

"Yes, but if I don't yell at them now, then they'll never learn," Jareth said with a cocky grin on his face.

"Since my assistant just ran out, there's not much else for me to do right now," the other goblin said. "You can change now; just leave the dress over the changing screen and I'll pick it up later." She stormed out from the room, and the door slammed behind her in her irritation.

"You're a real ass sometimes, you know that, right?" Sarah said with an annoyed sigh as she turned to face Jareth. Only he wasn't in the chair anymore. She jumped a little when he appeared behind her. Jareth spun Sarah around so that she was facing the large, three-paneled mirror; he put his arms around her waist and rested his head on her shoulder. With Sarah standing on the step, they were nearly the same height.

"You are so beautiful, precious," Jareth whispered. "When I announce you as my fiancee at my mother's ball, it would be a wonder if anybody wasn't overly angry at the news." He pressed a lingering kiss between Sarah's shoulder blades. He pressed his fingers into Sarah's hips, and she let out a breathy sigh.

"J-jareth," she whimpered as Jareth's hands cupped her breasts and started to gently play with her semi-hard nipples through the velvet of her dress. In an instant, the dress vanished, which left Sarah wearing only a bra and panties. Jareth's hands dipped under the fabric of Sarah's bra and continued to tweak and tease her nipples until Sarah was panting and leaning back against Jareth for support.

"Open your eyes, precious," Jareth said, his voice low and husky. "I want you to watch yourself as I pleasure you." He pressed a kiss onto the side of Sarah's neck as he undid the clasp on her bra, and slowly slid the straps off from her arms. After it had dropped to the floor, Jareth slowly slid his hands down Sarah's stomach until he came to the top of her panties. But, he didn't stop there, and pushed his right hand under the elastic waistband. There, his nimble fingers slowly started to rub at Sarah's clitoris.

Sarah watched with part fascination, part arousal as Jareth fingered her in the mirror. But, the only thing that she could see was his hand as it moved under the pink fabric. "No, take them off," Sarah moaned. Jareth withdrew his hand, only to push Sarah's panties off her hips; once they had been shoved down, gravity took over and they pooled around Sarah's ankles. She stepped out of them and kicked them to the side before Jareth returned his hand to where it had been a moment ago.

Sarah thought for a moment that she should probably be embarrassed to be this turned on by watching Jareth stimulate her clit. But the feelings that he drew forth from her with only three fingers and the picture that they painted in the mirror was too sexy for her to feel anything but more and more pleasure.

"Do not look away, precious," Jareth whispered into her ear before he ran his tongue along the outer shell and gently nipped at her lobe. But looking away was probably the last thing on Sarah's mind. Jareth's fingers grew faster and faster, and Sarah blindly ran her fingers over Jareth's shirt from behind. "Cum for me, precious."

Sarah let out several halting, breathy moans as her entire body shook. Rational thought left Sarah's mind for a moment, but she never broke eye contact with herself in the mirror. After the maddening tremors in Sarah's pussy had stopped (or at least slowed), Jareth scooped Sarah up, bridal style, and carried her over to his bed. He put her down on the velvet covers before he crawled on top of her, and kissed every inch of her front that he came into contact with.

When he finally reached her lips, Sarah cupped his face and gently pushed him away from her for a moment. "Does my sexy face really look like that?"

"You don't like it?" Jareth asked with a raised eyebrow. Sarah shook her head. "You also aren't looking at it from my perspective." Sarah wrapped her legs around Jareth's waist and slowly started to circle her hips against his erection, which was still encased in his ridiculously tight pants.

"I wish that I could remember why you love me so much," Sarah said breathlessly as Jareth thrust his hips into hers in a poor mockery of what they both wanted.

"I want for you to remember, too, precious, but I'm also not looking forward to you remembering why you hate me," Jareth whispered. Sarah's movements stilled.

"Was it really that bad?" she whispered as she reached up to run her fingers through Jareth's hair.

"Probably not as much as you first thought about the issue," Jareth said. "Maybe being blocked from your memories will allow you to look at them with fresh perspective once you get them back."

"Hm, maybe," Sarah agreed and then pulled Jareth down for a kiss. "Maybe having you sex me up before we even knew that there was a problem to begin with might be good for you." Sarah pressed herself as close to Jareth as possible until the only thing that seperated them were his clothes. "Although, if you don't get undressed right now, I might be a little an-" Before Sarah could even finish the word, Jareth was naked.

A second later, and he pushed inside of her completely. Sarah gasped loudly, and her fingers dug into Jareth's back sharply. He nipped lightly at the side of her neck as he slowly started to move within her. "Yes, Sarah. Is this what you wanted?"

"Yes!" Sarah groaned in response. Jareth circled his hips a couple of times before he started to thrust into Sarah wildly. This made Sarah throw her head back and scream loudly; the sound echoed fiercely in the stone room, but it only made Jareth laugh.

"Scream for me, precious!" he said, before he said it much louder in order to be heard over Sarah's answering screams. Sarah screamed Jareth's name over, and then broke off mid-cry. Her fingers scraped at Jareth's back, and she shook slightly as she came. Jareth let out a low grunt and buried himself into Sarah as far as he could as he came.

Sarah's eyes went wide a second later. "Oh shit," she whispered.

"What?" Jareth whispered harshly as he looked to her.

"We didn't use a condom," she replied.

"Sarah, I brought you here to my magic castle after your magically-addled brain caused you to have a massive seizure," Jareth said with a frown. "What part of magic don't you understand?" Sarah looked at Jareth sharply.

"So… you used some sort of spell and it'll prevent me from getting pregnant?"

"Sarah, I've barely gotten you to accept all of this instead of Jared Garfield," Jareth said as he rolled onto his back and tucked Sarah against his side. "Why would I risk getting you pregnant and having you be beyond livid at me?" Sarah only just gave a low hum of agreement.

"I'm glad that sex didn't trigger another seizure, but I'm also a little surprised that nobody came to investigate. After all, we did get pretty loud for a moment there," she said with a slight giggle after they were both silent for a moment.

"What part of 'magic castle' is still confusing to you, precious?" Jareth said as he gave her a sharp look.

"The part where we can scream as loud as we want in this giant echo chamber and nobody comes running?" Sarah replied with a mischievous grin. Jareth rolled on top of Sarah and gave her a slow, lingering kiss.

"I have something for you," Jareth said with a slight smirk after he'd pulled away.

"Not more stupid, frilly dresses, please," Sarah said with a scowl.

"As much as I enjoy seeing you in those dresses, I like seeing you as you are now much more," Jareth replied. He pulled away from her and knelt by her side. "No, I have this for you." He produced a ring, which he presented to her. The band was white gold and braided with an intricate leaf pattern, while the stone itself was a massive diamond, which was surrounded by much, much smaller emeralds.

Instead of gasping in awe at the ring, Sarah only scowled first at it, and then at Jareth. "I thought that you said that this was a pretend engagement?"

"It is, but what kind of King would I be if I couldn't even give my pretend fiancee an engagement ring befitting both her beauty and her future title?" Jareth asked. He grabbed Sarah's left hand, but she pulled it away.

"No, I don't want it," Sarah protested.

"Just wear it for a couple of hours to show my mother, and then you don't have to wear it until the ball," Jareth said. "I promise."

"…Okay, fine," Sarah said. She reluctantly presented Jareth with her left hand; he gently grabbed it and slid the ring onto her ring finger. Sarah stretched her fingers out and twisted her hand every which way as she watched the light hit the gems. "It's a lot lighter than it looks," she said finally.

"Magic," Jareth whispered. He cupped Sarah's face and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips before he pulled away and jumped out from bed. "I believe that we have a couple of visitors, precious. We shouldn't hide away in our room until they're gone, because that would be in very poor taste!"

"What?" Sarah said. She watched as Jareth's clothes appeared on him, much in the same way that they'd vanished earlier. "You could have told me that you wanted me to wear the ring for the visitor rather than for Amael."

"Well, then," Jareth said. A baby blue dress appeared on Sarah, and she looked herself over. She pushed herself out of the bed and stood before the mirror to give herself a better look. "Does this suit you, precious?"

"I suppose," Sarah said with an annoyed sigh. "I just wish that you'd let me wear pants."

"I will procure you some jeans to wear after our guests have left," Jareth said. He offered Sarah his arm, which she took, and the two of them walked over to the door, and out into the hallway.

Sarah was usually overly annoyed at how Jareth always insisted on making an entrance, even if it was just for his mother. But as they walked down the grand staircase that lead into the front hall and Sarah saw who their visitors were, she was rather glad for Jareth's showmanship.

There were three females standing in the middle of the room: one a grown woman, and two who were much younger. The two younger ones looked to be about the same age, and had the same coloration, but aside from that, they could have possibly been any more different. The woman was tall and every bit as beautiful as Jareth was handsome, but it was her long, light blue hair that most captured Sarah's attention.

"Good afternoon, Jareth," the woman said when the two of them had reached the middle landing on the staircase, and paused for dramatic effect. Then, they continued.

Once they reached the bottom, Jareth answered by saying, "Good afternoon, Mizumi. What do I owe this pleasure?"

"Why can't I just bring my girls by for a friendly visit?" Mizumi asked sweetly.

"Because nothing you do is without motive, Mizumi," Jareth said evenly.

"Hm, well, while don't we sit down with some tea and I can tell you why we came?" Mizumi said.

"Mizumi," Jareth said with an annoyed sigh. "In case you hadn't noticed, but I'm not exactly currently without company." Mizumi's icy-blue eyes darted to Sarah for the first time since they'd walked down the stairs together, and Mizumi didn't exactly hide her look of disdain as she took Sarah in. "If you wanted to have a conversation with me, you should have sent me a letter in advance."

Surprise flashed across Mizumi's face before she schooled her features once again. "You never answer any of my letters, so how do you know that I didn't send you any in the first place?"

"Just because I don't answer them doesn't mean that I don't read them before I chuck them in the fire," Jareth said evenly. "Now if you'll excuse us, we must get back to helping my mother plan her latest ball. Such a waste of time, but she insisted, didn't she precious?" He looked down at Sarah, who gave him an odd look and didn't reply. "Mother and her balls."

"Actually, your mother's ball was what I wanted to talk to you about," Mizumi said.

"How could you have known about that? She has yet to even send out invitations yet," Jareth said.

"Yes, but you know how the grapevine works in the Underground," Mizumi said. She gave a coy smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and sent a shiver down Sarah's spine.

"Oh good!" Jareth exclaimed. "Then this ball should hold no surprises for anybody, then!" Jareth said with a coy smile of his own. "It was so nice of you and your daughters to drop by, Mizumi, but, as I said, we're very busy right now. So, I suppose that we will see each other at the ball. Imlin! Theli!" Two stocky goblins that were about half Sarah's height ran into the room from elsewhere. "Our guests will be leaving now. Please escort them off the castle grounds."

"But…" Mizumi stammered.

"Alright, you heard his majesty! Let's go! Let's go!" one of the goblins said as they herded the three women out the door. Jareth didn't even wait to see them out the door before he turned and walked with Sarah through a door off to the side and into a sitting room.

"What was all that about?" Sarah asked as they continued on through the room without pausing.

"I'd say that things just got a lot more interesting around here, precious."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I believe that both my mother and I have gravely misjudged some of the people that will be at the ball," Jareth said. Sarah raised her eyebrows at him.

"The gossip that she was talking about… it was more than just the fact that your mother is throwing a ball, right?"

"I believe so, yes."

"How in the world did anybody hear about our engagement, fake or otherwise? You haven't exactly been shouting about it from the tallest tower of the castle, after all."

"Ah, servants hear things, and word gets around," Jareth said. "Speaking of which…" He grabbed Sarah's left hand and gently pulled the ring he'd given her moments before off.

"You knew that it was that woman and that she'd probably come here to talk to you about our engagement?"

"Not our engagement, precious," Jareth told her. He nimbly twirled the ring between his fingers for a moment. Sarah watched the trick silently and when the ring vanished, she met Jareth's gaze.

"I think that I see now why things just got way more complicated."

* * *

1) Lines are, of course, from Princess Bride.


	10. Chapter 10

"Sir, I'm so sorry to disturb you sir, but there are some people at the front gates who won't leave unless they speak with you, sir," a stocky goblin whispered in the doorway to Jareth's personal study.

Jareth put his quill down, heaved an annoyed sigh, stood up to his full height and looked down at the Goblin. "Why can't anybody in this stupid kingdom so much as take a shit without my approval?" Jareth grumbled. The goblin uttered a quiet squeak of fear before he dove out of the way just in time to avoid being kicked by the irritated Goblin King. A second later, Jareth was gone, and the goblin ran away as fast as he could least he was around by the time that Jareth got back.

Jareth, meanwhile, had teleported down to the front hall of his castle, where he threw the front doors open with an overly dramatic wave of his hand. The doors crashed against the wall and Jareth stormed outside and down the front path to see who was at the gate that wouldn't leave.

"Well, well, well. Who do we have here? Sir Didymus, the rock mover, and the Prince of the Bog of Eternal Stench himself! I would ask what the three of you are doing here, but there is only one reason why you would have come together."

"We heard that you've got Sarah!" Hoggle said with a surly glare at Jareth. "We demand that you let us see her!"

"Sarah friend," Ludo added rather unhelpfully.

Jareth heaved another annoyed sigh and started to rub the bridge of his nose. "You lot had better come in, then. I have something to tell you." Jareth spun away from the gate and it open with a wave of his fingers. Hoggle, Didymus, and Ludo exchanged a brief look; Hoggle shrugged and started to follow Jareth, and the other two fell into step after him. Before Jareth could start up the steps to the front door, which had closed after he'd come through, he spun around to face Sarah's old friends. "Before we go any further, there's something important that I have to tell you. It's about Sarah."

"If you've hurt her, you fiend…" Hoggle growled under his breath.

"Would you relax?" Jareth said with a roll of her eyes. "Sarah is as well as could be, given the circumstances."

"I'm afraid that I don't follow you, your majesty," Didymus said after he exchanged another look with Ludo and Hoggle.

"I will explain the situation to you further once we're inside, but I only ask that you don't go yelling for Sarah," Jareth said simply.

"What do you take us for: common barbarians? We do not scream out for the company of our friends, good sir," Didymus said simply; he looked rather insulted that Jareth would even imply that they would.

"Very well," Jareth said. He turned around again and lead them inside.

A few minutes later, he'd finished explaining the situation to Sarah's three friends. "Yes, I see now why she didn't seek us out upon her return," Didymus said as he sat back in a winged-back chair.

"Ludo sad."

"Yes, this is a very troubling ordeal indeed," Didymus agreed.

"So, what exactly does this ball that your mother is throwing and whisperings about you being engaged have to do with Sarah?" Hoggle asked.

"My mother and I have come up with a plan," Jareth said, and then he described it in detail to them. "Except, yesterday, we had an unexpected visit by-"

"Queen Mizumi," Hoggle said with a sneer. "We know— practically everybody in your kingdom saw her come… and then leave only a few minutes later. And she looked more than pissed off when she left."

"I thought that it would be easy enough to spot whoever had done this, because they acted out of jealousy," Jareth said. "But now I am reminded that many women have tried to gain my romantic attention, so maybe it won't be nearly as easy as I first thought."

"Anybody with ears and eyes knows what Mizumi feels about you, your majesty," Hoggle said. "The rumors about Sarah were not circulating until earlier today, so maybe when Mizumi heard that you were engaged, for some reasons, she thought that she meant to you?"

"Now that is just absurd," Didymus said with a scowl. "Why would his majesty make a surprise engagement announcement when not even his intended bride knew nothing of her engagement?"

"I cannot speak for all, but I personally believe that Mizumi is rather short on common sense," Hoggle said with a scowl.

"That's the truth," Jareth said with a scoff and a roll of his eyes.

"But do you really think that she's got it out for Sarah?" Hoggle went on.

"She was on my mother's list of people who are capable of casting such a spell," Jareth said. "And after her visit, I believe that I'm going to move her name to the top of the list. It was, after all, highly suspicious."

"Why, you just give me one good whack at that pom-" Didymus started, but was interrupted by a female goblin.

"I'm so sorry, your majesty, but Lady Sarah is asking for you," the goblin said gently.

"Will you tell her that I'll be there in a moment?" Jareth said. The goblin sunk into a small curtsy before she turned on her heel and ran off.

"I don't suppose that it would be in Lady Sarah's best interests right now if we were to see her," Didymus said.

"I wouldn't risk Sarah's health just to appease our curiosity and desire to see her again," Hoggle said.

"I also don't want to risk Sarah having another seizure— I was the cause of her second one, and most likely the cause of the first— but there is something that I'm curious to find out," Jareth said. "If you will please wait here, I will go talk to Sarah and my healer for a moment." Before the three could even process what Jareth had asked, the Goblin King vanished from the room.

He appeared in the library a second later, in front of the fireplace. Sarah looked up from a book that she was reading. "Oh, there you are. I was looking for you," she said.

"Yes, I know, precious," Jareth said and offered her a small but warm smile. "Actually, there's something important that I'd like for you to consider."

"Okay?" Sarah said with a confused frown. Jareth knelt down in front of where Sarah sat and grabbed her hand.

"I know that you don't remember your last visit here, but you did not return to your home without friends," Jareth told her gently.

"I do have a tendency to make friends where ever I go, so that doesn't surprise me at all," Sarah said evenly. "But these friends of mine? They're here now?"

"Yes. Word gets around a lot faster than I would have imagined here, and once they heard, they came to find you."

"Did you tell them that I don't remember anything?"

"I did, but also…" Jareth paused. He turned Sarah's right hand over and pressed a gentle kiss to the palm of her hand. "Also, I'm wondering if you would like to try and see them? Maybe not all at once, but one at a time. After all, you are able to not only be in my presence, but you can also remain in my kingdom without any ill side-effects."

"But what about-" Sarah started, but Jareth quickly cut her off.

"It was that I said something to you that I said the last time you were here. I'm not certain if meeting your friends again will trigger another seizure, but maybe being around your friends might trigger more memories to come back. After all, when you were around Toby, it eventually triggered your memories of me to come back."

"Only a very few memories," Sarah said. "Of you and Toby. And a fierce hate that I still don't fully understand."

"I will fully understand if you decide to say no, however," Jareth went on gently.

Sarah was quiet for a long moment. The fire cracked and popped and filled the silence. Finally, "Will Sielel be there?"

"I will ask him to accompany us," Jareth said. "So is that a yes?"

"That's a yes," Sarah said.

"I will go get Sielel, and talk to your friends to see which one wants to go first."

* * *

A few minutes later, Sarah walked downstairs and into the drawing room where Jareth had had his earlier conversation with Sarah's three friends. Jareth and Sielel looked up from the chairs that they sat in, but Hoggle jumped to his feet when she entered.

"Sarah," Hoggle said gently. "You have no idea how good it is to see you after all this time." He twisted his cap in his hands as he waited for Sarah to say anything.

"I would return the favor, but as Jareth has explained to you, I don't really remember you at all; I'm so sorry."

"S'not your fault," Hoggle told her quickly. "If you could have I know that you…" He trailed off. "Aah, but that doesn't matter now." Sarah sat next to Jareth on the loveseat, and Hoggle hopped back up into the chair he'd been in previously.

The grandfather clock in the corner gave a single bong to indicate the half hour. A log fell over in the fire, which continued to pop and crackle merrily. "So," Sarah started absently.

"Yes?" Hoggle said rather nervously.

"What do you do, Hoggle?"

"Oh, this and that," Hoggle said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It's not important."

"It is to me," Sarah insisted quickly.

"Well…" Hoggle said hesitantly. He looked over to Jareth, who only raised an expectant eyebrow at the dwarf. "I was a grounds-keeper for a long time, but then Jareth made me into a prince."

"A prince?" Sarah asked with surprise as she looked over to Jareth.

"A prince under my kingdom, of course," Jareth told her quickly.

"You must have done something really wonderful in order for Jareth to turn you from a grounds-keeper into a prince!" Sarah told Hoggle.

"Yes, wonderful," Hoggle grumbled under his breath. "The thought that I might someday see you again, Sarah, is the only reason why I didn't completely abandon the title."

"I don't… I don't understand," Sarah said softly. "Isn't it an honor to be crowned a prince? Even if your kingdom-"

"I'm the Prince of the Bog of Eternal Stench," Hoggle told her quickly.

"I… I don't know what that is, but that sounds horrid," Sarah said. "Why would you do such a thing, Jareth?"

"It's difficult to explain, precious," Jareth said as he gently grabbed Sarah's hand and kissed the back of it.

"Well try!" Sarah insisted with a scowl.

"It's… It's about you," Jareth said hesitantly. Sarah's scowl was quickly replaced by a look of shock.

"Oh," she said softly. "I see. Maybe we should talk about something else, then." Sarah turned her attention back to Hoggle. "Do you have any family?"

"No. Nobody wanted to be with me when I was a lowly grounds-keeper, and hardly anybody wants to talk to me now that I live in the bog."

"Oh, that's sad," Sarah said. "But what about the other people that you came with today?"

"They visit me, but they're not my family," Hoggle was quick to tell her.

"Well, at least you're not alone! And they must really like you if they come to visit you in the… The Bog, was it?"

"I suppose," Hoggle said with an annoyed humph.

"Well, I would personally not want to visit this Bog of Eternal Stench, so they must really like you," Sarah said firmly.

"Y-yes, of course," Hoggle said quickly. The room fell into silence once again. "This is honestly a lot harder to talk you, Sarah, when you don't remember anything about me."

"I'm sorry," Sarah said softly. "I wish that I could remember you, because you seem… niiice." She dragged the word out as if it was foreign to her tongue.

"Do you think that this is enough for one day?" Sielel asked Jareth. "After all, we don't know if talking about those things might bring back more memories. After all, didn't you say that it took Sarah an entire night for her to remember you?"

"She did, and it was after Toby told her what had happened to him as a baby," Jareth said. "Who knows what his conversation with Higgle-"

"Hogwart!" Sarah corrected rather incorrectly.

"Hoggle!" the dwarf said rather sourly. Then, his face brightened. "Hey!"

"What?" Sarah asked him.

"Nothing, it's nothing," Hoggle said quickly. He hopped off from the chair and walked over to Sarah; she stood up as he approached. "I'm happy to see that you are quite alright, given the circumstances, Sarah. The others will be pleased to hear about it."

"Good, I'm glad," Sarah said with a hesitant smile. "I'm sorry that you couldn't stay longer, Hoggle, but maybe this conversation will jog some more memories loose."

"Me, too, Sarah. I wouldn't wish memory loss upon… Okay, well maybe a couple of people." Hoggle glared pointedly at Jareth, but nobody else seemed to notice or care. Sielel escorted Sarah back upstairs to Jareth's room while Jareth saw Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus out. When Jareth returned to his room, he found Sarah face-down on their shared bed.

"I don't know what you and Sielel expected to happen," Sarah said, her voice muffled by a pillow. "I didn't regain my memory of you when I met you, but I regained it when Toby told me."

"I wasn't actually going to tell you anything about this, because I was worried about you, but…" Jareth sat down on the side of the bed and put his hand lightly on the small of Sarah's back. Sarah turned her head to give Jareth her full attention "Do you remember about two weeks ago, right after we first hooked up? I stayed the night at your apartment, and you had a nightmare?"

"Um, vaguly?" Sarah said with a small frown.

"You didn't exactly give me all of the details of your dream, but it sounded like something that happened to you when you were here last," Jareth said. Sarah's eyes widened, and she looked all over the room before she refocused her attention back on Jareth. "You know more about that dream than you're letting on, don't you?"

"Yes," Sarah said hesitantly. "But I also don't want to even think about it, because that dream seriously freaked me out."

"It was just a dream, Sarah. They have a way of twisting even the most innocent of things into something completely horrifying."

"I suppose that you're right. I just-"

"Jareth!" Amael exclaimed in a sing-song voice as she burst into Jareth's room. "You'll never guess who's come for a visit!"

"Mother! Don't you knock?" Jareth hissed at her.

"Why? You two are only having a heart-to-heart," Amael said. "And besides, it's not like I've never walked in on your siblings doing-"

"Mother!" Jareth snapped with a look of horror and disgust on his face.

"No matter," Amael said with a slight chuckle. "Pyrael is here."

"Pyrael? What is so important that she's dragged herself away from her own family and kingdom to visit me? She's never felt so inclined before," Jareth said with a scowl.

"Who's Pyrael?" Sarah asked as she rolled over onto her back and pushed herself into a sitting position.

"My oldest sister," Jareth said. "And the Queen to the Underworld after mother passes away." Jareth stood and held his hand out to Sarah. "We'd better go see what she wants, at any rate."

"Should I put on the ring again?" Sarah asked as she stood.

"I don't believe that that will be necessary," Amael said. "After all, aside from the fact that Pyrael is Jareth's sister, she's also in a much higher position than Jareth is. Why would she care about some human girl that her kid brother is interested in?" The three of them left the room and walked without fanfare into the sitting room where Sarah and Jareth had been moments earlier with Hoggle.

Sarah looked up at Jareth and briefly wondered why he would go to all of the trouble to make grand entrances with his mother and even Mizumi, but not with his older sister.

"Ah, there you are," said a woman. She looked like she might have been somewhere between Jareth's age and Amael's, but since Amael barely looked old enough to have a son Jareth's age, let alone eleven other children, her real age could have been just about anything. She stood and was maybe a little bit taller than Sarah, but shorter than Jareth. Her hair was a rich, vibrant red color, and stuck out in every which way, a bit like Jareth's did, except that her hair was longer. She had a strong jaw-line, and a strong nose, and looked nothing like either Amael or Jareth. The only similarities that Sarah saw was that her eyes were the same mismatched pair that her younger brother had. "So pleased that you could break away from your horrendously busy schedule to see me today, Jar," she said with a sarcastic roll of her eyes.

"Yes, and I'm pleased that you put aside all of your work to drop by unannounced, Pyrael," Jareth said, every word that he spoke dripped with sarcasm.

"Well, you know how gossip spreads in the underground," Pyrael said. "And I just had to come and see for myself. After all, it's not every day that my little brother gets married, let alone to a human!" She turned her attention to Sarah and offered her a bright but sincere smile. "Hello. You must be that wretched human whore that everybody's talking about!" Sarah bristled, but Pyrael just laughed.

"Sarah is not some whore!" Jareth rounded on his sister. "I love her, and that's the only thing that matters!"

"I know that, and that's what I told everybody," Pyrael said with a grin as she examined Sarah. "If you wanted some little human to pop out babies for you willy-nilly, you would have married one a long time ago. You see, Sarah, my baby brother isn't exactly the kind of person who changes himself easily. So if he wasn't a person who wanted a lot of children a hundred years ago, he probably still doesn't want any now."

"I… I see," Sarah said hesitantly, although she wasn't quite certain what was happening.

"But when Jareth loves something, he never wants to give it up. Ever," Pyrael went on.

"Well, is there some reason why you put running your kingdom on hold in order to come and see how our wedding plans are going?" Jareth asked dryly.

"What? Can't a girl come and see how her baby brother is doing?" Pyrael asked with a quick laugh.

"You've never shown much of an interest in me before now," Jareth said coolly. "Honestly, she was already up and running her own kingdom by the time that I was born," he told Sarah.

"There's a large age-gap between me and Toby," Sarah said. "I was worrying about school dances and getting my learner's permit when he was born. But that doesn't mean that I still don't love him."

"Ho-ho! A fine one that you've found, Jar!" Pyrael said with a laugh. "She's going to make you a fine Queen!" Pyrael put her hand on her hip and considered the two who stood before her before her eyes drifted over to her mother, who stood in the doorway behind Jareth and Sarah. "Well, I actually wanted to talk to your fiancee, Jareth. If that's alright with the two of you, that is?"

"I'm not actually his fiancee," Sarah blurted out before Jareth could say anything. Pyrael raised an eyebrow and looked between the two of them.

"Really?" she asked the other woman. "Have you told Jareth this yet? Because from the way I see it, he's completely mad about you."

"It's a little more complicated than that, I'm afraid," Amael said gently as she took in Sarah's bright-red face. "Why don't I ring for some tea and we can have a nice, long chat about all of this?"

"Yes, alright," Pyrael said as she sunk back down into the chair that she'd been sitting in when the three of them had come into the room. "Knowing you and the trouble that you get yourself into, Jar, this ought to be good."

* * *

As usual, please let me know if there were any grammatical mistakes. Hope you enjoyed.


	11. Chapter 11

I felt as if it was too early to have the ball scene, so I'm afraid that I wrote another filler chapter. This stupid chapter was what was holding me up for so long. (Although, having been on the end of having to wait for about a year before there's a chapter update, having to wait like... two weeks seems tame in comparison...)

But, after this, things will start to move, and they will move very fast. But you've still got to wait. Sorry.

As usual, this has not been proof read! You know what to do. Thank you so much to Honoria Granger for the help. :)

* * *

Jareth winced as another crystal shattered on the stone floor of the library. "Are you quite certain that this is a wise move, Pyrael?" he asked as Sarah squeaked out an apology.

"No matter, my dear, it's easily fixed," Pyrael said. With a lazy wave of her hand, the glass vanished, and it was as if it had never happened in the first place. "Of course it's a good idea, Jar," she said without looking at her brother. "Even if you intend to send Sarah home as soon as this entire mess has been sorted out, it would still probably be for the best to give Sarah some means of fighting back. After all, this isn't the land of pepper spray and brass knuckles. This is magic, and you have to know your enemy in order to have some fighting chance against them."

"Quite frankly, I agree with Pyrael," Sarah said with a scowl aimed at Jareth.

"Precious, you know that while you are here, you will never want for anything," Jareth said. "Anything your little heart desires…" He twisted his hand around and presented Sarah with a red rose. "And it will be yours."

"That's all very well and good, but what am I supposed to do when you're not around?" Sarah asked as she pushed Jareth's hand away.

"And where exactly do you think that I'd be?"

"I don't know," Sarah snapped at him. "Away. Unable to give me whatever I need. Look, you don't have to approve or not, and quite frankly, I don't really care. You're not the boss of me."

"If you don't have anything better to do, I'd suggest that you leave," Pyrael said with a frown. "Don't you have some subject of your to kick around or another?"

"Yeah, yeah. Dinner is at 6, as usual," Jareth said as he left the room with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Pyrael turned her attention back to Sarah once he was gone and gave her an expectant look. "I'm sorry, I'll try harder next time," Sarah said with a look of pure concentration on her face as she looked down at her fingers.

"Well, now that he's gone, you can really tell me the deal," Pyrael said. She casually slung her arms over the back of the chair she was sitting on and crossed her legs that was way too casual for the dress she was wearing.

"The… deal?" Sarah asked hesitantly. "I don't understand."

"Yes. What's the deal with you and my baby brother? You say that the entire relationship is a complete charade, but the way I see it, you've got him… What's that phrase that humans use? Vagina trained."

"Pussy whipped?"

"Yes, that's it."

"It didn't start out like this," Sarah said as she twisted her fingers together. "I like Jareth, really, I do, but… I'm still having a lot of trust issues with him." Sarah told Pyrael how Jareth came to her under the guise of Jared Garfield and started to woo her.

"Pussy whipped and you barely even knew his name," Pyrael said with a roll of her eyes. "Jar is completely head-over-heals for you, Sarah. It's little wonder that he's going to such lengths to help you when he couldn't care less about his family."

"I know that I'm probably in no place to say such things, but I think that part of that might stem from the fact that he's the youngest. And, from what Jareth said, you're much older than he is."

"You know, it's really unusual for a Fae couple to have more than one child," Pyrael said. "We live for a very, very long time, and as such, our fertility rates are incredibly low. But for one couple to have twelve children… that's just downright unheard of."

"I see," Sarah said absently. "So that's why Fae marry humans? Because we're able to have a lot of children?"

"Mostly just the men, but yes," Pyrael said with a nod of her head.

"And do? Do you have children?"

"Many hundreds of years ago, I thought that I might have been pregnant, but then I wasn't," Pyrael said. "But, no matter, since I am still young, and there is still plenty of time to keep trying." Pyrael's mismatched eyes darted around the room as if she was checking to make sure that they really were all alone. "Ah, but I'd probably have more time if my meddling mother didn't stop insisting on me having a baby with my husband. Fat load of good that he's done for me. He's only after my title."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked. Pyrael had never mentioned her husband, but Sarah assumed that since she was a queen and heir to take over Amael's role as Queen of the entire Underworld some day, that she must have one, at least.

"Fae take the bonds of marriage exceptionally seriously," Pyrael explained. "Especially Fae royalty. I was young and very stupid when I married Gavriel, and since then, I have lived every day steeped in nothing but regret. Quite frankly, you're wise to wait to marry, even if it's not to Jareth, Sarah."

"Humans don't feel like that, though," Sarah said. "Although sometimes, I wish that we did. We used to view marriage as being very sacred, but then somewhere along the lines, we stopped. And now, you can get a divorce as easy as…" She snapped her fingers. "And nobody really cares about that anymore. My mom left me and my dad when I was little, and she ran off with another man. And everybody kept saying about how she must really love him, but nobody said anything about the man that she left behind, and forget about her little girl who spent most of her youth without a mother."

"There are upsides to both ways of living, but there are also downsides as well," Pyrael said with a frown. "But anyway." She sat up straight and proper in the chair and smoothed out her skirt. "Back to your studies. The most important thing about magic is that you have to have a clear intention in your mind of what you want to do. Focus on nothing else but the task at hand."

* * *

"I don't think that I want to be a queen," Sarah said; her voice was muffled because she had her face pressed into a pillow on Jareth's bed.

"Don't think too hard about whatever Pyrael told you," Jareth said from the other side of the room. "Her duties as Queen are much more intense than anything that you'll ever have to do."

"You say that as if it's already decided," Sarah said as she lifted her head up from the pillow to look at Jareth. "As if I've agreed to marry you for real."

"Oh, my precious Sarah," Jareth said with a sigh. He dropped the cloak that he was examining and came over to stand at the edge of the bed and looked down at Sarah. "You gravely mis-underestimate me if you think that this is all that I've got to woo you." Sarah gave him a rather dry look.

"You think that castles and servants are going to impress me?"

"No, of course not," Jareth said and seemed rather insulted that she would think that of him. "If you were that easily impressed, I probably would have grown bored of you. I like a challenge, after all." Jareth knelt on the edge of the bed, and then swung his knee over so that it was on the other side of Sarah.

"What are you doing?" Sarah asked sharply as she tried to turn around to see Jareth. He pushed down on her shoulders to keep her lying on her belly, and slowly started to knead his fingers into her muscles. They were moist with something, and slightly damp, and the aroma of lavender and vanilla hit Sarah's nostrils after a moment.

"Your muscles are so tight, precious," Jareth murmured. "Somebody as beautiful as you should not have to carry around this much stress all of the time."

"It's hard not to be over-stressed with everything that's happened in the past week," Sarah said, and then she let out a contended sigh.

"This isn't just about what my sister told you… is it?"

"No. It's about my memory loss and seizures and…" Sarah hummed with contentment. "And what's-her-face coming here and your mother's ball and this stupid fake engagement…"

"Shh," Jareth whispered as he leaned close to her ear. He paused for a moment to lightly tug at her lob, and then he ran his tongue along the outer shell of her ear. "From now on, precious, this bed will be a completely stress-free zone. You are not allowed to think about any of that while in this bed."

"I think I can get behind that," Sarah said. Jareth straightened up and continued to massage Sarah's overly tense muscles. Within a couple of minutes, Sarah's breathing had evened out— she'd fallen asleep. Jareth climbed off from her carefully so as to not wake her, and went over to the wash basin in the corner to clean the oils off his hands. Then, he undressed, and climbed into bed beside her.

* * *

"Sarah, taste this!" Amael said as she bustled over to where Pyrael was giving Sarah another magic lesson. Amael held out something that might have been a cracker with an artful dollop of something that was bright red on the top of it on a silver tray. Sarah hesitantly picked it up with her thumb and pinkie and put the entire thing into her mouth. She chewed a couple of times, coughed, and her eyes started to water.

"Um… yes. It's um…"

"Oh no, you don't like it?"

"I wouldn't say that I don't completely dislike it?" Sarah said hesitantly when she could talk again. Pyrael threw her head back and laughed heartily before she conjured up a glass of water, which she handed to Sarah. Sarah gratefully drank half of it in one massive gulp and then she panted heavily.

"Are you sure that there's not some Fae in you, Sarah?" Pyrael asked. "You sure do know how to twist your words like one."

"Maybe it's not so much Fae as it is a strong love for the English language and triple negatives," Sarah said carefully.

"Well, this is Jareth's and your party, and I'm just hosting it," Amael said. "I will cross jalapeno dip off the list."

"It's not as if I don't enjoy jalapenos," Sarah said. "It's just that… if there was a scale from 1 to 100 on how hot that a jalapeno is, that would be a 100."

"Okay," Amael said hesitantly, and then smiled brightly. "I'll tell the chefs to tone it down a lot!" She vanished from the room.

"Honestly, mother," Pyrael said with a slight shake of her head and a low chuckle. "You'll have to forgive her; she gets over excited about planning balls. I'm just grateful that I'm not being roped into this and the only thing I have to do is to show up."

"The more I think about how that lady reacted when she showed up here unannounced the other day, I can't help but think that this is going to be a lot more difficult than any of us ever imagined," Sarah said. She let out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through her hair, only she'd forgotten that a goblin maid had put it into an elaborate braid, and quickly smoothed her hair down again.

"Okay, so here's the thing about a lot of the Fae who're lower ranking, but looking to suck up to anybody that they can get their hands on: as soon as I and my younger siblings announced our own engagements, and as the actual date of the wedding drew closer, a lot of them lost interest and moved on to the next best thing," Pyrael said. Sarah was silent for a moment and sipped the water.

"Okay, I get what you're saying," she said slowly. "If we really want to flush out whoever did this, then we're going to have to, not only pretend to be engaged, but pretend like we're going to actually get married as well. To start the wedding plans, set a date…" Sarah trailed off. "If everybody's hypothesis about the spell on my mind is correct, then this was done purely out of spite in order to get me out of the picture."

"Yes, exactly!" Pyrael exclaimed with a snap of her fingers. "But what they weren't expecting two things: The first being Jareth's love for you, and the second was that you'd somehow start to break the spell on your own."

"So the ball doesn't even matter," Sarah said hesitantly. "I mean, it's not the announcement of Jareth's marriage to me that matters, but rather, the fact that it's happening at all. Because if our hypothesis is correct, then they'll probably be angry. And will continue to get angrier and angrier until they start to get sloppy."

"I think that you are more than cut-out for being a Fae, Sarah," Pyrael said with a laugh. "Okay, but there'll be more than enough time to talk about taking down this evil villain after the ball. Right now, we're having a magic lesson."

Sarah turned her right hand over so that her palm was up, and looked at the lines on her hand with her brows furrowed. A milky-white sphere appeared for the briefest of seconds before it burst, and sent a thousand, tiny shards flying everywhere. "I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I'm clearing my mind and focusing on conjuring the crystal, but it always breaks."

"It just takes time, Sarah," Pyrael told her. "You think that we all became this amazing in less than a week?" With a simple flick of her wrist, Pyrael held a crystal sphere of her own.

"No, probably not."

"The second rule of magic is probably the single most frustrating: you've got to be patient and practice, practice, practice!"

* * *

"This is completely absurd, Jareth," Sarah complained as the maids adjusted the mostly-finished dress on her in front of the mirror. "Why do I have to wear this? I can barely breathe."

"It's the style, precious," Jareth said as he watched the fitting from his chair by the fire. "The Goblin Kingdom might not be overly popular, but I am a king, and I do have appearances to keep up." Jareth swirled the wine in his glass around and watched the red liquid slosh around for a moment before he took a slow sip. "But I promise you that you won't have to wear this unless we're making public appearances. After all, I've given you all of your own clothes to wear, have I not?"

"No, you have," Sarah said slowly as she turned to look at herself from behind. "You've given me everything that I've ever so much as thought to want." At this, Jareth gave a slow, predatory smile, but since Sarah was busy examining her dress in the mirror, she missed it.

Somebody knocked on the door, and Jareth opened it with a lazy wave of his hand. One of the goblin footmen came into the room and stood there, waiting to be addressed. Jareth gave him a lazy wave of his hand to let him know that he was free to give his announcement. "Sir Didymus is here for his meeting with Lady Sarah."

"Oh, right. I completely forgot about that little fox," Jareth said.

"Sir… Didymus?" Sarah said hesitantly with a giant frown.

"Yes, you know. He was one of your friends the last time you were here," Jareth said rather boredly. "Despite how abmisal that your meeting with Hogwash went, Sir Didymus and Ludo still insisted that he see you. I told them to wait a couple of days, since I wanted to see if being introduced to Hogwart would have any ill-effects on you. And, since you don't seem to have cared either way about the dwarf, Sir Didymus insisted that he see you."

Sarah was quiet for a moment and chewed on her lower lip. "Jareth!" she said abruptly. She shook off the two goblin seamstresses and stepped off the stool that she'd been standing on. "I didn't remember before, but I remember the Bog!"

"Well, it is something that came up during your meeting with Hogwash," Jareth said, but he sat up straighter in his chair and looked at Sarah.

"Hoggle!" Sarah corrected. "You never could remember his name!" The two of them stared at each other for a long moment. "How do I know that? I don't remember having any other interactions with you, and I can only vaguely remember you kidnapping Toby. But I remember how you could never remember Hoggle's name. And I also remember the Bog of Eternal Stench. And that it was aptly named."

"This is fantastic, Sarah! We may not even need to have the original spell caster lift this curse upon your memory, because you seem to be breaking it on your own! Slowly, and a little at a time, but it's better than nothing."

"I remember Sir Didymus, too, but probably because he was guarding the bridge over the bog," Sarah said. She quickly pulled off the dress, threw it to the maids and pulled on the simple dress that she'd been wearing before the fitting. Then, she ran out the door and into the sitting room. "Didymus!"

"Lady Sarah! It is a pleasure to be in your presence once again," the little fox said before Sarah scooped him up into a big hug.

"I remember you!" Sarah exclaimed. "The footman came in to announce that you were here and then I suddenly remembered you!"

"This is most excellent news, Lady Sarah! I was most worried for you when Jareth told us what had happened to you. I have missed you ever so much since you left, and I was pleased to hear that you were back. However, after your conversation with Lord Hoggle, he told me not to get my expectations up too much. However, I know that I can keep up a conversation, no matter how dry that it might be, so I had little worries about this meeting with you. Ooh, Ludo and Hoggle will be most pleased to hear about this!"

Sarah put the little fox down again, and then sat down in a chair opposite him.

"Now then, milady, you must tell me everything that you remember so that I won't talk about the things that you don't remember."


	12. Chapter 12

The music from the open doorway swelled beautifully and sent shivers of nervous anticipation down Sarah's spine. Sarah loved to watch historical movies, and she thought that she knew perfectly well what Amael's ball was going to be like. Despite all of Sarah's mental preparation, as well as the dance lessons from Jareth, the food and wine tasting with Amael, and the dress fittings, she was the opposite of being prepared for this.

"Are you ready, precious?" Jareth asked. His soft-spoken words and the casual way that he looked down at her only made Sarah squeeze his arm harder.

"I don't think that a thousand years of preparation could ever prepare me for this," Sarah said. Her gaze was locked on the open doorway that lead to the balcony that would take them down to Amael's ballroom. The announcer was giving them an expectant look, and also looked rather annoyed; it was almost a given at this point, considering that they'd been standing there for nearly two minutes now.

Jareth spun around so that he was between Sarah's gaze and the doorway. "Precious," he started. "Sarah." She slowly looked up at him. "None of those people matter. I love you, and that's all that matters." He cupped her face between his hands and gently kissed her lips. It was only thanks to some spell that the Goblins had cast over Sarah that Jareth didn't pull away with pale pink lipstick on his own lips.

"Well, there is one person who matters," Sarah whispered.

"Yes, but we don't have to worry about them. Because tonight is our night," Jareth replied. "Are you ready, precious?" Sarah nodded, and with one last, light kiss of her lips, Jareth went back to her side. She gripped his arm and they stepped forward, through the overly ornate doorway.

"Announcing Jareth the Goblin King and Lady Sarah Williams," the man said in a clear, ringing voice that carried over the sound of the orchestra and the light chatter of the guests. Jareth and Sarah started down the stairs, and by the time that they'd reached the bottom, all eyes were on them. Sarah's knees felt like they were made of jell-o, and her stomach was turning worse than the time that she'd eaten some funny Indian food and ended up with food poisoning. She felt just about as good as that time, too.

"Jareth, it's so good to see you again," Mizumi said as she came up to the two of them. Her two strange daughter followed in her wake, although people tended to stay away from the smaller of the two, as the literal dark cloud that hung over her head was raining something fierce.

"Yes, it's always a pleasure to see you and your daughters, Mizumi," Jareth said through an overly forced smile. "I see that Moulin is the life of the party, as usual."

"It's always an honor to be invited to your mother's balls," Moulin said without inflection in her voice.

"Well, you know how Moulin is; she'd rather be in a library than at a ball," Mizumi said with a little laugh.

"You could have at least asked that she leave Nimbus at home," Jareth said.

"Nimbus gets lonely and destroys the castle when I'm not there," Moulin said, again, without inflection.

"I'm starving," the larger of Mizumi's daughters said as she patted her overly-large stomach.

"Yes, of course you are, darling," Mizumi said with tenderness. "Why don't you go get something to eat while mommy talks with Jareth?" Drumlin left, and Moulin trailed after her.

"There are a lot of people that I'd like to introduce Sarah to tonight, so if you don't mind…" Jareth said as he and Sarah half-turned to leave.

"Oh, but Jareth, there is something dreadfully important that I wanted to speak to you about."

"If it was so important, then you should have written to me."

"I did."

"Oh." Jareth paused for a beat to consider this. "Then you should have marked your letters as being urgent after I didn't respond."

"I did," Mizumi said through a clenched smile.

"I see." Jareth paused again, and then offered Mizumi a cheerful smile. "Well, a party is no place to discuss important matters! After all, in case you hadn't heard, but I'm planning to make a very important announcement later, and talking business would only take away from my announcement. Come on Sarah, I think that I see Pyrael over there." Without further ado, Jareth quickly lead Sarah away from the other Fae. Once they were several feet away, Sarah looked back to Mizumi, and saw that the blue-haired woman was positively fuming where they'd left her by the end of the stairs.

The orchestra started to play a lively waltz, and Jareth swept Sarah up and over to the dance floor. It was easy for Sarah to forget her troubles for a moment as she focused instead on not stepping on Jareth's toes. "I thought that we were going to go speak with Pyrael."

"Why? Are you missing her in the scant few hours that we last saw her?" Jareth asked with a slight smirk. Sarah gave him a deep scowl and he laughed a little. "Pyrael won't mind if we don't meet up with her for a little bit. And Mizumi probably knows that it was just some excuse to get away from her."

"Why is she so determined to speak with you?" Sarah asked.

"Why should I know? She's completely crazy. You see those daughters of hers?"

"Yeah. They're a bit… unusual," Sarah said. Drumlin was standing by the food table and inhaling anything within her grasp, while her sister stood by and created an ever-growing puddle of water from her cloud. "What about them?"

"They're not Fae."

"What are they?"

"They're ablation that Mizumi created. Aspects of herself that she wanted to get rid of, but its difficult for anybody to do that, as you might imagine."

"I don't understand; why would anybody want to get rid of a part of themselves like that?"

"I can't really say for certain about Mizumi's motives, but there has always been… uh… how should I put this? Mizumi is a troubled individual." Jareth pulled away from Sarah but still held onto her hand as the song ended. He lightly pressed his lips to the back of her hand, and then pulled her back to him as they walked off from the dance floor.

"Jareth? Oh, I was hoping that I'd get a chance to talk with you for a moment tonight!" It was a well-dressed male Fae, who had a giggling girl dressed in a frothy, pink dress on his arm.

"Yes, of course, Lord Chiesu," Jareth said.

"I was wondering about the outer-most borders of your Labyrinth, the ones that…" Chiesu started to talk about places that Sarah had never heard of before.

"Politics are so boring," said Chiesu's date to Sarah.

"It's not that they're boring, it's just that I would probably be more interested if I knew what they were talking about."

"Hm, maybe you're right. But even though I do know the towns that Chiesu's talking about, I still find it hard to be overly interested in it. This is a really pretty dress. Who made this?" she asked as she gently fingered the puffy sleeve of Sarah's dress.

"Oh, I don't know. The goblins, I guess."

"Yes, of course. Jareth is the Goblin King, after all." She rolled her eyes.

"So it's settled then. I'll write to you as soon as Yepam and I get home, and we'll arrange to meet another time to discuss this further, then?" Chiesu said.

"Yes, of course," Jareth said. Yepam gave Sarah a small smile as Chiesu lead her away. "I hate it when people try to talk about important matters at a party," Jareth said to Sarah as he turned to lead her away. "I keep telling people that they need to write to me so that we can talk in a more business-like environment, but they almost never do."

"That's because you throw most of your mail in the fire without even opening them," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. "How do you know if something important isn't happening?"

"Because my mother would tell me if it was," Jareth said as if it was the most obvious thing in the entire world. They walked around the room and met several other people, some in groups of three or four, and others by themselves. But they usually would only make quick introductions and exchange pleasantries before Jareth would usher Sarah on.

After a bit, they finally ran into Pyrael and Amael. "This is my worthless husband, Gavriel. Don't talk to him." Gavriel, was stuffing his face with the remaining hors d'oeuvres that Drumlin had not eaten. Sarah had not seen where the three of them had gone, but she didn't really care so long as they were not near her.

"I see that you've already made the rounds," Amael said. "I think that just about everybody on my… special guest list is here now. You should make your announcement." Sarah's heart started to hammer in her chest. Jareth gave her hand a quick squeeze and offered her a loving smile. "I'll go tell the orchestra so that you can." Amael vanished into the crowd.

"You don't have to do anything but to stand at my side, precious," Jareth whispered in her ear. "We'll leave shortly after, alright?" Sarah could only nod. Jareth shifted a little and ran his tongue along the shell of Sarah's ear. "We'll be quick, because there are so many things that I would love to do to you, and none of them involve that pretty dress of yours, Sarah." Sarah flushed and pressed Jareth closer to her for a moment just as the orchestra abruptly cut off in the middle of a song.

"So sorry for the interruption," Amael said as she stood at the front of the stage. "I just wanted to thank everybody for coming out tonight, and I hope that you're all having a great time. Before this ball goes any further, I just wanted to hand the stage over to my youngest son, Jareth, as he has an important announcement that he'd like to share with everybody." Everybody politely clapped and moved out of the way as Jareth, with Sarah in tow, walked up to the stage.

"Thank you, mother," Jareth said as soon as he and Sarah got to the center of the small stage. Sarah's knees were shaking again, and this was even worse than when they'd walked into the room, because then, she could only say that maybe most of the attention was on her. But now, 100% of it was focused on her and Jareth. "I just wanted to make a public announcement of this and say that Sarah and I have decided to get married."

A ripple of shock ran through the crowd at Jareth's simple words.

"It is a decision that neither of us came to lightly, considering, not only the strict rules that still govern our people, but also the fact that Sarah is from the Aboveworld. But we are in love, and I don't think that any of that really matters," Jareth said as he turned to look Sarah in the eye. The crowd started to whisper louder and louder, and the couple of words that floated to Sarah's ear were not overly kind. Sarah opened her mouth to say something, anything, to Jareth, but he cupped her face between his hands and gave her an exceptionally passionate kiss.

For a brief moment, the ball and all of the people who couldn't even keep their comments to themselves until she and Jareth were out of earshot, completely vanished. The only thing that existed was Jareth's soft, thin lips and his moist tongue as it did completely devilish things to her mouth. Sarah pulled away from Jareth, completely breathless, and turned her attention to the crowd, which had fallen completely silent. A few of the older ladies that Sarah had been introduced to were fanning themselves with their hands, and several of the younger women just stood, completely slack-jawed at the sight.

"I think that this is our cue," Jareth whispered to Sarah. She turned her back to look at him. Jareth wrapped an arm around Sarah's waist to pull him flush against his chest. "I bid you all adieu," Jareth said to everybody. Then, they vanished from the ballroom.

It took Sarah a moment to reorient herself— they were standing in Jareth's room. Well, it was pretty much their room now, as Sarah hadn't slept a night in any other room since she'd gotten to his castle. She looked up at Jareth who leaned over to capture her lips in a searing, passionate kiss. He roughly bit on her lower lip before his tongue darted out and ran over her lip to soothe the pain away a little.

Jareth backed Sarah up until she hit the foot-board of the bed, and then Jareth's nimble fingers roughly grasped at the bodice of the dress and tore it apart as if it was rice paper. "Jareth!" Sarah exclaimed with annoyance as he continued to rip the bodice until there was nothing left but Sarah's skirt and her corset. "What are you doing?"

"I'm undressing you the fastest way I know how," Jareth replied before he started to lightly nip at the pale flesh just above the top of her corset.

"That dress took a lot of time to make, and you ripped it up."

"I'll repair it, precious, don't you worry," Jareth replied. He pushed the skirt down off from Sarah's hips, and it pooled around her ankles until Jareth picked Sarah up and pressed her against the ornate bed post. Sarah wrapped her ankles around Jareth's waist and rocked her hips against his erection.

"You could… you could have used magic, you know?"

"Yes, but I want to be a little rough with you right now, precious," Jareth growled. He grabbed the cups of Sarah's corset and started to roughly pull on it. Sarah felt the metal fastening that the strings went through protest against Jareth's actions for a brief moment before they broke free from the fabric. Jareth ripped the corset off from her torso and threw it aside with the remains of her dress.

Sarah grabbed Jareth's shirt in her hands and tried to rip it off from him, but the fabric was too strong. "Oh come on!" Sarah complained after a moment of trying. Jareth made sure that Sarah was balanced between the bedpost and his hips, and released his hold of her so that he could reach down and rip his own shirt for Sarah. She brushed the torn fabric off from his arms before she cupped his face and gave him a rough kiss of her own.

"Jareth," Sarah broke off their kiss with a breathy moan. She reached up and grabbed onto the post with both hands and pushed her back against the solid pole as she ground her hips firmly against Jareth's rock-hard erection. "Jareth… Jareth, please. I need you."

Jareth's pants slid to the floor, seemingly of their own violation, and Sarah felt his penis poking her butt. Jareth readjusted Sarah's position against the bed-post, pushed aside her panties, and then slammed roughly into her. Sarah let out a strangled cry and raked her fingers down Jareth's back hard enough to leave red marks.

Jareth grabbed a handful of Sarah's dark hair and tilted her head to the side so that he could run his tongue up the side of her neck. "Yes, my precious Sarah," he groaned as he continued to pound into her at an alarming rate. "Yes, scream for me!" Sarah let out another cry as Jareth drove deeper and harder into her than he had been. "Scream my name, precious!"

"J-jareth! Jareth!" Sarah started, and each rendition of the Goblin King's name grew louder and louder. Jareth pounded into Sarah as hard as he could every time that she said his name. "Jar…" Sarah broke off in a breathless shudder as she reached her orgasm. Jareth let out a primal roar as he came, and then roughly bit the junction of Sarah's neck and shoulder. She started to shake around him all over again as the feel of Jareth's cum inside of her brought her to another orgasm.

Jareth slowly released Sarah and put her down on the ground; she put her hands behind her onto the bed post in order to support her, as she was feeling exceptionally weak in the knees after the entire experience.

"Come, precious," Jareth said as he walked over to the bed. Sometime during their passionate fucking, Jareth had removed both his pants as well as his boots, and Sarah took a moment to watch his naked butt for a second. When Jareth had climbed onto the bed and gave her an expectant look, Sarah hurried to join him.

* * *

Sarah lay for a moment in the dark room; the fire was nothing but dying embers and the only source of light seemed to come from the quarter moon as its light streamed in through the windows. She wasn't sure why she'd woken up in the first place, but now that she was awake, she couldn't seem to get back to sleep.

Jareth grumbled a little in his sleep as she slipped from the bed; she felt a little pang of guilt as he reached for her, but seemed confused, even in his sleep, that he couldn't find her. But, it wasn't like she was going to go anywhere far— jut a walk until she felt sleepy again.

Sarah moved over to the wardrobe where her clothes were stored, both from Aboveworld and the things that Jareth had provided her with from the Underworld. A dark figure standing next to the mirror caught her attention, but as Sarah got closer, she saw that it was only a dressmaker dummy, with the dress that Sarah had worn to Amael's ball on it, completely repaired.

Sarah gave a low snort and rolled her eyes as she reached into the wardrobe to grab her dressing gown. After she'd pulled it on, she crept silently from the room. Although the castle had let Sarah out from the room, it either sensed her desire to just walk until she got tired, or was unwilling to send her to anyplace other than a seemingly endless hallway.

This seemed alright to Sarah until she realized how completely cold that she was. The castle always seemed to be the right temperature, no matter what, so it hadn't occurred to Sarah that she should have grabbed her heavier dressing gown. And maybe her slippers— when had the stone floor become so completely freezing under her bare feet?

Sarah looked down and she saw that there was a low, dense mist that circled around her ankles. She shivered, half with fright, and turned around to try and go back to the bedroom.

Only, as she turned, she saw that she was no longer in the castle, but in a garden. She'd walked in Jareth's gardens enough with Jareth, Amael, and Pyrael since she'd arrived at his kingdom, and the creeping vines and flowers that looked blood-red in the inky night had no place in Jareth's usually cheery gardens.

Sarah's breath caught in her throat and misted before her. "Hello?" Sarah called out as unease blossomed in her belly.

"Hello," said a deep voice from behind her. Sarah jumped a little, and half turned, but a chilly hand reached out and grabbed Sarah's chin; long, unkempt nails scrapped along the delicate flesh of Sarah's throat, and Sarah swallowed hard.

* * *

Thank you so much for sticking with my story thus far. I hope that you've enjoyed the latest chapter!

As always, this has not been proof read, so any help with fixing this chapter up will be most appreciated!


	13. Chapter 13

Once again, I borrow from Return to Labyrinth, this time with Moppet. This really is starting to turn into a redo of Return to Labyrinth, isn't it? But, you know... with more love for Sarah, and less creepy Jareth/Toby... whatever.

* * *

In a sleep-filled fog, Jareth reached for Sarah. But when his fingers touched nothing but cool blankets, he awoke fully and sat up. The lights in the room came to life, and Jareth looked around. No Sarah in sight.

A little panicked now, Jareth jumped out of bed and a dressing gown flew onto him as he did so. He went over to the wardrobe and saw that only her lavender dressing gown was missing, so maybe she hadn't been gone for too long. Jareth tried to swallow his rising panic, but it was hard, because, no matter how well that Sarah had been the past couple of weeks, wandering around alone in his castle could set her off again. He needed to find her to make sure that she wasn't having another seizure somewhere.

Jareth conjured up a crystal and skipped back to the point when they went to sleep earlier that night. After a couple minutes of watching them sleep, he saw Sarah get out of bed, pull her dressing gown on, and then she walked out the door into the hall and simply vanished.

"What?" Jareth whispered with confusion. He watched the scene again, and no… she just vanished. She didn't go out the doorway and leave the castle (as far as Jareth could tell), she literally walked out of the door and Jareth's spell stopped working at that point.

Now in full-on panic mode, and with good reason, too, Jareth teleported himself directly to his mother's castle, right in the middle of her bedroom. "Mother! We have an emergency on our hands!" Jareth boomed.

"Jar… what…?" Amael whispered as she sat up in bed. Jareth strode over to her bedside and thrust the viewing crystal in her hands. Amael watched the scene, and then watched it a couple more times just to be sure that she'd seen it correctly the first time. "This is bad. This is very bad."

* * *

Sarah jerked awake, and instantly felt exceptionally vulnerable and cold. Very, very cold. Her breath misted out in front of her, even from her nose. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked around. There was a very thick mist that prevented Sarah from seeing more than a few feet in front of her, but from what she could see, she didn't like it at all. Thick vines curled up pieces of once-beautiful pottery and statues, and blossomed dark flowers that were larger than Sarah's head.

A crow landed in a dead tree that Sarah could barely see the outline of through the fog, and let out a horrifying caw. Sarah scrambled to her feet so that she wouldn't be caught sitting on the ground, and then wrapped her arms around herself as she shivered violently.

"Hello?" Sarah called out softly. If something had rustled or made any sort of sound, it would have been reassuring to the woman. But thus far, since she'd awoken, the only sound was that of her breathing and the crow. "Hello?" she called out, a bit louder this time. Still no sound. And not even an echo— her voice felt flat to her ears.

For a lack of anything better to do, Sarah decided that she'd go over to the tree with the crow. It only appeared to be a few feet away, after all, and it's not like she was getting any warmer just by standing around. She carefully picked her way around the plants, which she quickly realized had very sharp-looking thorns that were as long as Sarah's pinky and as thick as her thumb. Although the statues and planters were beyond destroyed, and the vines seemed to grow nearly everywhere, the path that Sarah walked along was clear.

"Hello?" Sarah called out again after she'd walked several paces. The crow only let out a loud caw and flew away. Sarah watched the dark bird against the white mist until she couldn't see it anymore. Then, she returned her attention back to the tree that it had landed on. As far as she could tell from her immediate surroundings (although it was more than a little difficult to tell), it was the tallest thing around.

After carefully walking along the path for several minutes, Sarah reached the tree. It had been creep enough through the mist, but now that she was close enough to actually see it, it looked like it was the stuff of nightmares. But then again, so was the rest of everything else. "Hello?" Sarah called out again, but with little hope. There was nobody else around.

Sarah turned around and tried to figure out which way that she'd come from; it all looked the same after a while. One decapitated cupid statue pretty much looked the same as any other.

There was something that Sarah needed to remember…

She furrowed her brow and paced slowly in front of the tree.

…But what?

Trying to force memories that wouldn't come was giving her a headache, so she stopped trying to think so much about what was beyond her mental grasp. Instead, she sat down at the base of the tree and leaned back against it. Although it was beyond creepy looking because it was half-burnt on top of being completely dead, it was the only thing around that wasn't covered in those lethal-looking vines.

* * *

"What did you do to Sarah?!" Jareth roared as he burst into Mizumi's castle.

"And what exactly makes you think that I've anything to do with your little human play-thing?" Mizumi said rather boredly. She was lounging almost lazily on her throne, and her daughters were sitting at her feet. But as Jareth stormed up the steps to get to where Mizumi sat, Moulin and Drumlin stood, as if to protect their mother. "No, darlings, Jareth just wants to play."

"Play?" Jareth said through clenched teeth as he came to a stop in front of the blue-haired beauty. He reached down, roughly grabbed Mizumi by the overly-ornate collar of her dress, and easily lifted Mizumi up, so that her feet dangled a couple of inches above the ground. "Tell me, Mizumi, are you having fun yet? Because I'm having a fucking ball." Mizumi let out a strangled cough and wrapped her hands around the wrist that bore her up into the air.

"Jareth, stop," Amael said with disinterest in the doorway. "Although killing her would be rather satisfactory, she won't be able to tell you where she's spirited Sarah off to." Jareth sneered up at Mizumi for a second before he tossed her away from him. She crumpled to the ground in a heap like a rag-doll, and her daughters ran to her side.

"Are you alright?" Moulin whispered as she and Drumlin helped Mizumi to her feet.

"I don't know why you think that I've taken your precious little Sarah," Mizumi started as she got unsteadily to her feet. She wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand, and then pushed both of her daughters away as they tried to help her. "But everybody knows by now what a sham of an engagement that you've got. Although the stories are rather… varied about why you're going through with this, there are also the stories going around about how Sarah keeps having massive seizures." Mizumi gave a little sarcastic laugh at the look of surprise that flashed across Jareth's face for the briefest of seconds before he schooled his features into a look of pure anger. "What? Like you've never had servants listen in on private conversations and then blab about it to the next person who comes along. Nothing is every really private, Jareth. Nothing."

"I don't care what you think that you've heard or know about my relationship with Sarah, but my love for her is very real. And if I find out that you've hurt her, I will make you wish that I'd killed you now," Jareth spat at her.

"And as I've stated before, what makes you think that I've anything to do with Sarah?" Mizumi said. She sat back down, but she couldn't hide the way that her hands shook.

"You're kidding, right?" Jareth said with annoyance. "The way that you, not only barged into my castle, unannounced, but also how you kept insisting that you had urgent business to talk with me about yesterday."

"Then I guess that you don't want to see this, then," Mizumi said. A letter appeared between her index and middle finger. She turned the thick paper this way and that, and Jareth saw the broken, red seal on the back. Jareth gave Mizumi an annoyed look and went to snatch the letter from her, but Mizumi pulled her hand back quickly and the letter vanished. "Ah-ah-ah, Jareth. I was more than willing to give you the information yesterday, but not now… not after how completely rude that you've been towards me."

Jareth took a deep breath in through his nose, and Amael could practically hear her youngest counting to ten in his mind before he exhaled slowly. "What do you want, Mizumi?"

"An apology would be nice. After all, I have nothing to do with any of this nonsense."

"Right now, you are the exact opposite of being trustworthy, Mizumi."

Mizumi considered his words for several minutes. "Hm, perhaps you are right, Jareth. Maybe I should try to prove myself to you, and then demand your apology." The letter appeared between her fingers again, and she handed it to Jareth.

First, Jareth examined the seal; he didn't know it, but there were a lot of different clans that popped up in an attempt to make a name for themselves, so that didn't really mean anything. The letter started out with pleasantries— Mizumi apparently knew the letter writer, or at least, the writer knew Mizumi, for they asked about Moulin and Drumlin by name, and then about how "the thing with the roses" went.

Then…

_As far as the entire Sarah situation goes, I'll admit that it is rather disheartening to hear about how things are progressing. Like you mentioned in an earlier letter, it was rather disturbing what he asked you for, and I can't say that I was overly surprised about how that entire situation resolved itself, I also can't say that I'm not overly surprised that things have turned out like this, either. However, I do believe that I have a solution for us that would suit all of our needs perfectly. After all, isn't this what you've always wanted?_

The letter ended on much of the same note that it began on, and without any further mention of Sarah. After Jareth reread the entire letter, and then read the short paragraph a third time, he began to puzzle the meaning.

Obviously, the mysterious letter writer (who had only signed off with an overly ornate H), was talking about Jareth. And there was only one thing that Jareth had ever asked Mizumi for. And that alone was enough to make his blood boil, since she'd sworn an oath to never discuss what had happened. Even the aftermath.

Of course, like how Jareth had exploited the loophole in Sarah's wish in order to join her in the Aboveworld, Fae were exceptionally well-known for finding the tiniest bit of wiggle room and making it into a massive hole. And obviously, Mizumi had found a loophole in her oath with him.

But that was besides the point at the moment. Jareth's embarrassing moment with Mizumi was nothing in comparison to the fact that Sarah was missing, and it appeared as though this mysterious H had something to do with not only that, but her blocked memories as well.

"This doesn't exactly exonerate you, Mizumi," Jareth said with annoyance. "And in fact, it makes you look a bit like an accomplice. Especially since you also apparently told this person about Moppet."

"Do you honestly think that your silly little ablation has anything to do with this?" Mizumi asked and waved her hand in a dismissive manor.

"I didn't until you brought her up," Jareth said.

"Moppet doesn't have anything to do with any of this," Mizumi whispered as she leaned forward to rest her hands on the top of her knees. "The last I'd heard of her, she was slumming around in your kingdom's dump because you'd kicked her out from your castle." Mizumi paused for a moment. "But, on the other hand, don't you think that Moppet would want to get even with you? After all, you're the only reason why she exists, and you couldn't even extend to her a basic kindness."

"This still doesn't exonerate either you nor Moppet," Jareth said. "I'm taking this letter, and don't think that this is the end of this discussion."

"You'll be back with my apology after you've found your discarded toy," Mizumi said as Jareth walked away. Once Jareth and Amael were outside of the castle, they transported themselves back to Jareth's office.

"What was she talking about? Who's Moppet?" Amael asked.

"Something that I'm embarrassed about, quite frankly," Jareth said as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "It may not be the best lead, but it's all that we've got right now. I'm going to go and find her." He handed his mother the letter. "Try and figure out who that seal belongs to while I'm gone."

"I'll ask around," Amael said as she looked at it closer under the light of a candle.

* * *

Sarah was walking around in the hopes of finding something. Another person or maybe even a tiny clue about where she was. Since the paths were very clearly defined, she stuck to them in the hopes of not becoming too hopelessly lost. Not like she wasn't already lost, but she didn't want to become even more lost in the process.

After about half an hour after she'd left the big tree, Sarah thought that she saw somebody moving through the mist. "Hello?" she called out. And although she got no response, when she got closer, she saw that it was obviously another person. "Hello!" she called out again, and tried to wave her hand in order to get their attention.

But when Sarah raised her hand, so did the other person. And when Sarah raised her other arm, so did the other person. Sarah walked through the mist until she saw that it was indeed her reflection, pale against transparent glass. It was pitch-black on the other side, and even when Sarah cupped her face against the ice-cold glass, she still couldn't see anything.

Sarah took a couple of steps back from the glass surface to examine it as a whole. It appeared to be slightly curved, from what she could tell, although it was a little hard to see for very far, as it was still quite misty. Sarah craned her neck back to try and see how high up that it went, but couldn't see any sort of top.

She walked back up to the glass again and started to bang her fists on it. "Let me out! Let me out!" she said with each hit of her fists. But after several minutes of this, the only thing that Sarah ended up with was some sore hands. She sat down on the ground with her back resting against the glass.

A memory came to her, then. A woman with bright red hair and mismatched eyes. Sarah had broken something, but the woman didn't seem angry or even mildly annoyed at Sarah's actions, which confused Sarah. "Focus on nothing but the task at hand," the woman said.

The image of the woman replayed over and over in Sarah's mind, like a broken record. Sarah watched the way that the woman's thin lips, painted red, said the words again and again, at varying speeds. But, no matter how much Sarah replayed the memory in her mind, the woman's identity did not become any clearer, nor did her message.

"What is my task?" Sarah asked herself after a moment. She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands, as if to clear the image of the woman from her mind. "Well, getting some answers would be nice, but that sounds oddly vague." Sarah shivered a little bit as she adjusted herself on the ground. "I suppose that it would be nice if it was maybe a little bit warmer."

So, Sarah closed her eyes and tried to think about warmth.

* * *

"Mother, this is Moppet," Jareth said.

"Oh my," Amael said with a rather disappointed sigh as she took in the young woman who stood by Jareth's side. She looked exactly like Sarah, but somebody had messed up her coloring. "I think that I understand now. But why?"

"Don't you understand after a month now, mother?" Jareth asked.

"My dear," Amael said to Moppet. "I am so sorry. Please, come here." She held out her hand towards the younger woman. Moppet looked up to Jareth and gave him a fearful, hesitant look; he gave a slow nod, and Moppet scurried across the room to Amael. The Fae Queen took Moppet's hand and lead her over to a chair by the fireplace, where Amael gestured for Moppet to sit. "So, you're Moppet?"

"Yes, that's the name that he gave me," Moppet said softly.

"And he had you created, too?"

"Yes, that's right. Of Sarah's discarded hopes and dreams of becoming a famous stage actress. She was really crushed after she was rejected from Juilliard."

"What is that? It's a school, right?"

"It's a very prestigious preforming arts school in New York," Jareth explained. Amael frowned a little at Moppet.

"And because one school rejected her, Sarah gave up on her dreams?"

"I wouldn't say so much that she gave up on them, but rather, that she was forced to face reality," Moppet explained.

"Well, we wanted to ask you about Mizumi," Amael went on.

"Yes, I know; Jareth told me on the way here," Moppet said softly. She looked down at her hands, which were weathered from living homeless in the Goblin Kingdom's dump for several years. "But I don't know why you think that I would know anything about her. She created me, shaped me from Sarah's discarded dreams, but that's it. I haven't seen her since then."

"Did Jareth tell you about why we're talking to you?"

"He mentioned something about Sarah," Moppet said softly. "But that's it." Amael quickly filled the younger girl in. "It is bad, but I don't know why you seem to think that I might be able to help," Moppet whispered. "Mizumi is not a kind woman, and but I think that she hides a lot of her vulnerability behind a shell." She cast a quick, shy look up at Jareth before she quickly looked down at her hands again.

"Yes, I'm aware," Jareth said evenly.

"Would you take a look at this, Moppet?" Amael asked gently. She produced the letter that Jareth had taken from Mizumi. "Specifically, this paragraph right here." She tapped the paragraph that mentioned Sarah and Jareth.

"I don't know who this H person is," Moppet said slowly after she'd read through the letter several times. "But they're obviously talking about putting the memory spell on Sarah. I think that whoever this might be, they did it for Mizumi, probably so that Sarah would forget about Jareth, and Mizumi could have him. But I'm wondering why?"

"What do you mean? Didn't you just give the why?" Jareth asked.

"No, but what I meant was: what's in it for H?"

"I find it rather hard to believe that Mizumi didn't have any knowledge of what happened to Sarah, either her memory or now," Jareth said.

"It's a little hard to say for certain, but I can say this one thing about her," Moppet said slowly as she stretched her fingers out in front of her. "And it's the fact that if you go around and accuse her of kidnapping Sarah, she'll never help you."

"She does have a point," Amael said to her son. "Mizumi's the only real lead that we've got at this point. If we piss her off, she probably won't help us."

"I want to go and get some more information from her," Jareth said as he turned to leave. "That is probably the first of many letters that Mizumi received."

* * *

Sarah opened her eyes and then scrambled to her feet. Was it her imagination or was it warmer than it had been a few minutes ago?


	14. Chapter 14

_No, no, of course you shouldn't be worried about this latest turn of events, Mizumi. After the spell that I put on Sarah, she'll never remember anything about Jareth or his wretched Labyrinth, so there's no reason for your harsh words. I've said this many times before in my past letters (as I'm sure that you'll be quick to point out to me), but I can't say that I didn't see this coming._

_Although, much like you, I am also at a complete loss as to how he managed to bypass the laws (laws that he and his cursed family put into place, no less!) that prevent our kind from going Aboveworld. But, sitting back and wondering isn't going to help us, because he somehow found a way._

_My dearest Mizumi, please also note that there is also one more thing that I put into the spell and it's this: if Jareth spends too much time around Sarah and then for some reason, the spell starts to break apart… well, let's just say that it'll make Jareth wish he were dead._

The contents of the second letter that Mizumi showed him made him clench the paper in his fists in anger. Of course, the woman wasn't around. As soon as she'd given Jareth the letter, she'd retired, claiming that she'd had a headache, and had left her daughters to watch over the Goblin King until he left.

She obviously had known what was going to happen all along, but whoever this H-person was, they were either exceptionally powerful in more than just their spell-casting abilities, or they'd done something to get into Mizumi's permanent good graces. Mizumi might fear what Jareth would do to her if she didn't help him to find Sarah, but she wasn't going to make this easy on him.

But of course, if Mizumi had just told Jareth who her mysterious friend was, Jareth would have thought that it was an outright lie and wouldn't have believed her.

"I will take my leave now," Jareth told Mulin and Drumlin before he turned around and left her throne room. He then teleported himself back to his study, where Amael, Pyrael, and Moppet were pouring over thick tomes.

"Well?" Pyrael asked when her baby brother appeared in the room.

"She gave me another letter, and then promptly claimed a headache and left," Jareth said. He handed the letter over to his mother. "They also signed off with another H. Do you think that I's enough of a hint to cross some names off from the list of possible suspects?" He'd seen the two lists that his mother come up with: one of literally everybody in the Underworld who was powerful enough to do something like this, and the other of anybody who might have enough motive to want to do something like this. From those two lists, they'd come up with a third, slightly shorter, list of people who'd appeared on both lists.

"Just because they use a single letter to sign off doesn't really mean anything," Pyrael pointed out. "H could stand for literally anything. Like… 'hungry, horny hippos who hanker for haute hats'." Amael, Jareth, and Moppet gave Pyrael blank stares.

"Thank you Dr. Seuss," Moppet said dryly. "But I do agree that your sister has a point. We shouldn't cross people off the list just because they don't have an H in their name."

"Alright, but there's still a lot of people on that list," Amael said with an annoyed sigh.

"I think that the next course of action would be for Pyrael and Amael to go and talk to everybody on the list about Sarah's disappearance," Moppet said. "It would be a good way to cross off some of the names, and maybe somebody might know something that we don't."

"Yes, that's perfect, dear," Amael said. "We need to think like human police officers and question literally everybody."

"I should be out there, though!" Jareth said in a rather whiny way.

"No, I think that Moppet is right; it should be us," Pyrael said quickly. "You're too hot-headed and too angry about Sarah's disappearance to be talking to the suspects. You should stay here with Moppet and continue to try and find out what that seal is."

* * *

A side-effect of making the temperature under the glass dome warmer was that the mist vanished. Not like the view was much better now that it was gone; it was still the same giant vines with creepy flowers curling around broken statues and pots. But now, Sarah could see clear to the other side of the dome, where everything just abruptly ended. It looked like the entire thing was maybe a mile long.

The crow came and landed on the broken arm of a cupid statue not far from where Sarah was sitting. It opened its mouth, but instead of a loud caw, it simply said "Hello."

"Um, hello," Sarah said without batting an eyelash.

"It is much warmer here now," the crow said. "And it's a lot easier to see now that that creepy mist is gone, too."

"It was a bit creepy, wasn't it?" Sarah said. "I'm Sarah Williams."

"I know," the crow said. "But I'm Naba, anyway."

"Where are we?"

"It's hard to say the exact specifics, but I think that we're in Helviir's castle."

"Who's Helvirr?" Sarah asked with a frown.

"Obviously Helviir the Troll King," Naba said as if it was the most obvious thing in the entire universe. Naba paused and shifted from foot to foot uneasily. "But, you probably wouldn't have known that any way."

"I don't know why I would have," Sarah said simply. "Why does this Troll King keep women under glass domes?"

"He normally doesn't," Naba said quickly. "It's not very nice, after all."

"No, I can't say that it is," Sarah agreed. "And doubly so since I'm the one that he is currently keeping under a glass dome."

"Well, you're not," Naba said. "Under a glass dome, I mean." Sarah reached up and tapped her knuckles on the glass that surrounded them.

"If this isn't glass, then what is it?"

"I never said that it wasn't glass, just not a dome," Naba said.

"Alright then, what is it?"

"It's a glass sphere."

"Oh, big fucking difference," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. They were silent for a moment. "So, who is this Helviir the Troll King anyway? I mean, aside from the obvious 'Troll King' part." Another roll of her eyes.

"There's not much that I can say about him," Naba said. "The only way that I know him is that he turned me into a crow and then put me in here."

"How long ago?"

"Eh, it's hard to say," Naba said. If he'd had shoulders, he would have shrugged them. "It's easy to lose track of time in here."

"What were you before you were turned into a crow?"

"An Elf."

"Oh, like a Fae?"

"Hardly," Naba said; he acted as if it was an insult just to be compared to the Fae. "Elves are completely different from the Fae."

"Oh yeah? Like how?"

"For starters, we aren't prone to break out in spontaneous acts of sparkling at any given moment. We're also more connected with the earth. While the Fae might be content to make massive kingdoms for themselves, the Elves have been content to remain in the same forests that we have lived in for millenia." Sarah thought that he sounded a bit like Native Americans, but bit her tongue and didn't say anything, least Naba become insulted by that, too.

"You know, there are a lot of stories about how a beautiful princess comes along and gives a kiss to somebody who's been turned into an animal," Sarah said after a moment of silence.

"As lovely as it would be to have you kiss me, Sarah, I'm afraid that this isn't that kind of a spell," Naba said evenly.

"Oh," Sarah said lamely. Her eyes darted all over the sphere before they landed back on the crow. "Why didn't you talk to me before?"

"Because there are a lot of others who come through here. At first, I tried to talk to them, only to prove that they were all complete morons. After a while, I just stopped caring; they either die in here, or Helviir takes them out and I never see them again."

"So what changed your mind about me?"

"You obviously have a very solid grasp of magic."

"Is that what it is?" Sarah asked as she turned her hand over. "I don't know. I just had a hazy memory of a woman that I don't know telling me to focus on the task at hand." Naba let out a loud caw and flew closer to Sarah. He landed on the ground next to her and looked up at her with one dark, beady eye.

"That's a real nasty spell on your memories, Sarah," Naba said after a while. "And it's got Helviir's signature all over it. Whatever you did, it must have pissed him off pretty good."

"I suppose that I'm glad that I don't remember it," Sarah said as she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Although, why would somebody make me forget everything, and then lock me away?"

"Fair point," Naba said as he hopped from foot to foot. "As far as I can tell, though, you've been in the Underworld for… maybe a month? Probably more? But you're human."

"A month?" Sarah asked with wide eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Give or take a couple of days, but yes. I'm sure."

"I just…" Sarah ran a frustrated hand through her hair. "I just wish that I could remember why I was even here in the first place. I keep getting these… I don't know how to describe it? Flashes? Of people. A lady with red hair, an older lady, and then a man. And then there's this… little talking fox… thing. It seems like it would be something on like… Sesame Street or something, but I think that I know the fox?"

"Sounds like a kitsune," Naba said. "Trickster fox spirits who can also be exceptionally wise and loyal friends. They normally live more with the Elves in the forests, so I don't know who you'd be hanging around in order to know a kitsune."

"I wish I could tell you," Sarah said.

* * *

"They are going to find out! Jareth and his mother are already on your trail!" Mizumi hissed.

"I'm sorry, but isn't this exactly what you wanted?" Helviir said slowly. He was exceptionally tall, easily 8-feet in height. His skin was a garish, pea soup shade of green, and covered in warts and boils. His nose looked like he'd been in several fights with brick walls and was nearly flattened against his face as well as being crooked. His lower jaw protruded several inches beyond his upper lip to reveal yellowing teeth, and two, thick tusks that grew from his mandible and stopped just before his nose.

Despite Helviir's garish appearance, he was dressed in a fine, silk shirt and pants, leather boots and gloves, and a feather cape was held around his neck with an emerald clasp.

"I wanted for Jareth to forget about Sarah and love me!" Mizumi yelled with tears in her eyes. "And this entire time, Jareth has done absolutly nothing but pine after Sarah! And after he's had her within his grasp, he seems more determined than ever to get her back!"

"In case you hadn't noticed, Mizumi, but the Fae and Trolls are not exactly on good terms," Helviir said in an even tone. His voice was deep, but not overly gruff, like one would almost expect his voice to sound like. "The Goblin King and his equally foolish mother will never even think to look into the Troll Kingdom."

"Amael is no fool, Helviir," Mizumi said, her voice low. "And you'd be a fool to underestimate her."

"Even if they come here, then what? It's not exactly like I'm keeping Jareth's little human locked up in a tower or in a dungeon. They can search my castle all that they like…" Helviir threw his arms out to gesture all around him. "Hell, they can search the entire Troll Kingdom for all that I care! Because they'll never find Sarah. And when Jareth is grieving for his lost love, that's when you'll move in to comfort him. Completely at a loss for what to do, Jareth will easily bend to your whims, Mizumi. While I will admit that Jareth first going to the Aboveworld to get the girl, and then him brining her here were things that I had not exactly expected, the end result is much better than what I would have ever imagined."

"And the girl? What would you do with her?"

"Jareth might claim that he loves the stupid woman, but I think that we all really know why he wanted her."

"But trolls don't have the fertility problems that Fae do," Mizumi said slowly. "Why do you want her?"

"Just because I don't have any problems impregnating women doesn't mean that I want my bride to be a troll. After all, I am a quarter Fae. The Troll Kingdom ended up being worse off than even the Goblin Kingdom, because not even Amael's and Rielyr's wretched children wanted anything to do with us. We were left to wallow in our own filth, to govern ourselves. Well, look at what their poor decision-making has brought them?" Helviir once again gestured to all that was around him. "I have plans to topple the Fae Kingdom, and it starts with taking down Jareth."

Mizumi looked rather shocked and horrified at this revelation. "You are not going to harm Jareth!" she whispered as she wrapped her arms around herself.

"Oh, Mizumi, I'll let you have your fun, first. After all, my great plan involves you having Jareth's heir. But after your baby will be born, then I'm afraid that the Goblin King will just become a redundancy and will need to be removed as soon as possible."

Mizumi's look of horror quickly solidified into a look of complete disinterest. "So long as you don't hurt our child, then I will be happy to go along with your plans, Helviir," she said evenly. "If that's all, I have a lot of business that I need to attend to." Helviir gave the Fae a strange look.

"You came here of your own free will; I did not summon you."

"Then I will not over-stay my welcome, then," Mizumi said smoothly. She turned around and sashayed out from Helviir's castle until she could transport herself back to her own castle. There, she sunk down onto her throne and conjured up a crystal to watch Jareth. But, her hand trembled too much and she dropped it onto the ground, where it shattered into a million pieces. "FUCK!"

* * *

"This doesn't make any sense," Moppet complained as she looked down at the page of the thick tome that was open in front of her. Depicted on the page, were family seal after family seal, but none of them resembled the seal on the letters that Jareth had taken from Mizumi. "We've looked through all of these books twice already and have yet to find it. Why do you think that looking through them a third time will yield different results?"

"Because if I don't have anything to do, then I'm probably going to kill that snake Mizumi," Jareth growled. He let out a roar of frustration and swept all of the books off the table with an angry wave of his hand. Moppet, who had been looking at a book, just sat back in her chair and gave Jareth a look of pure annoyance.

"If this is how you act when you're angry, I'm honestly really glad that you couldn't compel me to love you," Moppet said dryly. "All things considered, I mean."

"I don't think that you really understand the situation, Moppet," Jareth said through clenched teeth.

"I think that I understand everything perfectly fine." She crossed her arms over her chest and gave Jareth an expectant look. Jareth sunk into his chair and buried his head in his hands.

"I was so very close," he groaned. "She didn't even remember me, and yet, she was still willing to forgive what little that she did because she really felt something for me. And then… And then…"

"Okay, you know what, I think that it's time to take a break," Moppet said quickly as she jumped to her feet. "When's the last time that you slept?"

"If I sleep, then I might wake up only to find out that none of this was ever real."

"None of this?" Moppet asked as she gestured to the books that Jareth had thrown onto the floor. "Or none of Sarah?"

"It would be a dream come true if I woke up with Sarah in my arms again," Jareth said lowly.

"Well, Sarah is a very lucky girl because you won't leave a single stone unturned in the entire Underworld until you've found her," Moppet said. "But you're letting your emotions control your judgment, and that's going to lead to mistakes. Four hours of rest, that's all that I'm asking, Jareth." She tugged on his arm and Jareth let the ablation lead him to his bedroom. "Four hours."

"Yes, alright," Jareth said. "I'll have four hours to pretend like when I open my eyes, this will all have just been a really horrible dream."

"Yes, just a nightmare."

* * *

"I haven't been able to do much magic in this form," Naba said as he flew ahead of Sarah. She was walking rather aimlessly around their prison. "Crows have a little bit of magic, but not as much as say, a raven or an owl."

"I didn't know that birds had magical power."

"Most don't, but there are a few that have much. Eagles also have power, but you usually don't see them too much associated with magic."

"And things like bears and wolves?"

"Both highly magical creatures," Naba said. "Coyotes, snakes, cats… certain insects."

"Okay, so do these creatures have magical abilities because we believe that they do, or do we believe that they have magical abilities because they actually do?" Sarah asked. Naba let out a sound that was part laugh, part caw.

"Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?" Naba asked. Sarah paused briefly before she looked over to the crow, who had landed on the neck of a decapitated, naked cherub. "Helviir might have taken away most of my powers when he turned me into a bird, but he didn't take away any of my memories."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked. Naba flew closer to where Sarah stood and landed on the remains of a pot.

"It means that he was a fool to put a powerful Elf who does not have the ability to cast magic, but remembers everything, in a prison with a human who is also exceptionally powerful, but simply lacks training."

"Oh, I'm not powerful," Sarah protested meekly. "I didn't even know what I was doing."

"Sarah, you made this place into a summer oasis and cast away the mist within two hours," Naba told her quickly. "Most magic-users would have to be ten-times your age before they could do a weather spell like that this quickly."

"I still didn't know what I was doing. I only thought that I'd like to maybe not be completely freezing anymore, and then it got warmer and the mist went away."

"Sarah," Naba said sternly. "I have a plan in mind. And that plan includes me teaching you everything that I know in the shortest amount of time possible. We are going to make Helviir regret taking us captive."


	15. Chapter 15

By the time that Jareth, Pyrael, and Amael got to Mizumi's castle, it was already in flames. Moraine didn't have many subjects, but the few that it did have were too busy trying to flee their burning home to notice the three Fae.

"Damn," Pyrael muttered as she ran a hand through her unruly hair. She turned to her brother. "She does know that doing something like this makes her look super guilty… right?"

"Well, if that's the case, then we know that we're on the right track," Amael said gently. "Jareth?" She put a gentle hand on her son's arm. "She wouldn't go to all of that trouble to put the memory spell on Sarah and then kidnap her if she only intended to kill her." Jareth flinched away from his mother's words.

"Mom's right, Jar," Pyrael said as she turned her back on the burning castle. "For some reason, Mizumi seems to think that Sarah would be more useful alive then dead. There's not much we can do here now until the fire's burnt out, though. Let's come back to see if we can find any clues in the wreckage."

* * *

"What happened?" Moppet asked as soon as the three Fae came back.

"Mizumi's castle burned down, and looked like it was going to take most of Moraine with it," Amael explained to the ablation.

"Yeah, because that's not completely suspicious," Moppet said with a roll of her eyes.

"That's what I said!" Pyrael exclaimed.

"Mizumi was our best lead at finding what happened to Sarah," Moppet said as she bit on her knuckle. "And any other letters that she might have had, she probably burned first."

"Either way, it wouldn't hurt to shift through the ruins," Pyrael said.

"Hey, Jareth…" Moppet started as she turned to the Goblin King. "You wanna know who'll be looking for work now?" He raised an eyebrow and waited for Moppet to continue. "If you show kindness to the people that Mizumi used to employ, maybe they would be willing to tell you some of their mistresses goings on."

"I knew that there was a reason why we were keeping you around other than for pure man-power," Pyrael said with a smirk. Jareth swept out of the room to go tell his goblins to find those who used to work for Mizumi.

"Um, excuse me?" said a footgoblin as he poked his head nervously into the study.

"Yes, what is it?" Amael asked him gently.

"There's a young lady at the front gate, asking to see His Majesty. Only I can't find him at the moment."

"He's probably sulking in his room or kicking some poor goblin around," Pyrael said with a roll of her eyes. "I'll see who it is and tell her that we don't want any girl scout cookies." She left the room in much the same way that her brother had minutes earlier, but paused when she stepped out the front doors of Jareth's castle. A lone, cloaked figure was standing at the front gate, just as the footgoblin had described, only she was obviously trying hard not to be seen. "Can I help you?" she asked as she got closer to the gate. The woman turned to look at Pyrael, and the older Fae gasped; it was Moulin.

"I need to speak with Jareth," she said in a hushed voice. "It's urgent."

"Yes, of course." Pyrael quickly opened the gate and ushered Moulin inside and up to the study.

"What is she doing here?" Moppet asked as the other ablation followed Pyrael inside.

"What am I doing here? What are you doing here?"

"Enough of that," Pyrael snapped. "Jareth, this is urgent." Jareth swept back into the room in a shower of sparkly feathers. He took one look at Moulin and then over to Pyrael.

"What is she doing here?"

"I came here to tell you everything that I know about my mother's plans in exchange for sanctuary," Moulin said quickly. Jareth considered Moulin's words for a moment.

"Alright," he said after a while. "I'll hear what you have to say and then decide on if you're worth harboring."

"Jareth!" Amael protested.

"What? I'm not going to risk my own kingdom just for some pretty words!" Jareth hissed. Both Pyrael and Amael looked like they were trying not to strangle Jareth. Jareth gestured to a chair at the table, and Moulin sat, followed by the rest of the women. Jareth stood before Moulin and looked down at her. "Speak."

"My mother has been friends with Helviir the Troll King since just about as long as I can remember," Moulin started.

"Helviir?" Amael whispered. "It's little wonder that we couldn't find the seal— we weren't looking in the right places!" She made a gesture, and an old book flew off the shelves and into her waiting hands. Everybody watched with bated breath as the Fae Queen flipped through the pages, and then pulled out one of the letters that Jareth had taken from Mizumi. "Yes, here is it: the seal from the original royal troll family." Pyrael, Moppet, and Jareth leaned over to look at the image that Amael pointed at.

"Okay, so you might have pointed out who might have had a hand in all of this, but that only leaves so many more questions," Pyrael said as she turned her attention back to Moulin.

"Like why can Helviir do magic that powerful?" Jareth finished for his sister.

"Oh, duh!" Amael exclaimed. "I completely overlooked the trolls because they can't do magic, but I forgot to account for the fact that Helviir's grandmother was a Fae because that was such a long time ago. I'd completely forgotten about Ambriel because she'd died such a long time ago."

"Oh wow, I'd completely forgotten about Ambriel. She used to scare me so much as a kid that whenever I even so much as heard rumors that she was going to come visit us, I'd hide in the catacombs until daddy came to find me," Pyrael said.

"Okay, so even diluted, he's obviously powerful enough to cast the memory spell over Sarah," Jareth said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "That's not important right now." He looked at Moulin for her to continue.

"I don't know what happened yesterday, but mother said that she was going to go speak with Helviir and then she left Drumlin and me at the castle alone. I didn't think too much of it— she takes us to a lot of places, but there are… certain times when she goes off alone. If you catch my meaning."

"We're not here to talk about what Mizumi puts into her body," Amael said flatly.

"No, of course not. But she came back within the hour, and at first I thought that everything was okay, because she just came into the throne room and sat down like she always does. But then she started throwing first crystals, and then sculptures, all over the place and screaming. I left as soon as she started hurling fireballs around."

Jareth spun around on his heel and strode slowly over to the opposite corner of the room. Pyrael rolled her eyes and she and Amael got up and went over to Jareth. Moppet stayed at the table with Moulin.

"What do you think?" Pyrael asked after Jareth had thrown up a privacy spell around the three of them.

"I think that that's a little girl who watched as her mother went crazy and tried to kill her," Amael said.

"Whoa mom! Nobody said anything about killing here!" Pyrael said.

"No, but you also don't exactly see Drumlin here either now, do you?" Amael pointed out.

"There's no way to confirm if she's not with Mizumi until we find Mizumi," Jareth said evenly. Pyrael shrugged absently and looked over her shoulder at the blue-haired girl.

"I think that mother is onto something, though," Pyrael said after a moment of hesitation. "Moulin is completely frightened. And… wouldn't you be, too?"

Jareth mulled over Pyrael's words for a long while. Finally, "Alright, so let's just say that we're going to believe what she says. So Mizumi had some letters with Helviir's seal on them, and they obviously talk about putting… some sort of spell on Sarah, but they don't actually mention it. But what sort of motivation would Helviir have to curse Sarah?"

"That is a good point," Pyrael said with a shake of her finger. "I can see Mizumi doing something like this, because she's always had her eye on you. But Helviir? What does he get out of it?"

"Obviously, the worst thing we could do would be to walk into Helviir's castle and flat-out confront him about this," Amael said slowly. "But Jareth…" Amael put her hand lightly on the crook of Jareth's elbow. "You watched as your friend's castle burnt to the ground, and you're worried about her safety as well as the safety of her two young daughters."

"Mother!" Pyrael hissed. "Jareth's gone completely bat-shit every time we think that we have a lead! Do you honestly think that sending him into Helviir's castle alone is a good idea?"

"No, but it might help us to get a feel for the situation," Amael said with a frown. Her eyes darted over to the two ablation who were talking in low voices at the table. Moppet sensed the gaze of the Fae first, and then Moulin looked up, too. "Helviir might not be so willing to talk to Jareth, though, but maybe if Mizumi's daughter was there… crying… uncertain of the fate of her mother and beloved twin sister…"

* * *

"I don't like this."

"I don't like this any better than you do, but if you're expecting safe haven from me in the future, you'd better do everything in your power to help me get Sarah back."

"Jareth, I'm sorry that I couldn't be more helpful. But I know that Helviir has something to do with Sarah's disappearance, though, even if I don't exactly have any proof."

"I should try to be more polite towards you, I know, since you were able to steer us into the direction of Helviir in the first place, but if this pans out, you won't have to worry about anything."

A smallish troll— that is to say, one that was under 6-feet in height— scurried out to the gate to see who was there and what they wanted. "Jareth the Goblin King," Jareth introduced himself. "I'm here to-"

"Yes, yes," the troll said as the gate swung open. "His Majesty has been expecting you." Moulin gave Jareth a panicked look, but Jareth ignored the girl and strolled after the troll. Moulin hurried after them so that she wouldn't be left behind.

"Ah, Goblin King," Helviir said as soon as the foottroll had shown them into the throne room. "I was wondering when you'd be by."

"Judging by the way that you were obviously expecting us, I take it that you already know about our mutual friend, Mizumi?" Jareth asked coolly.

"I can't say that this is a completely unexpected turn of events," Helviir said evenly. "After all, Mizumi has always been ruled by her emotions rather than logic. Take Moulin and Drumlin for example." Moulin flinched at Jareth's side at the mention of her name; the Troll King's dark eyes darted over to her, and she half-hid behind Jareth. "Speaking of her daughters…"

"Moulin came to me, completely distraught, over the events that have taken place," Jareth explained as he reached behind him and yanked Moulin to his side and pulled the hood of her cloak down. "She's completely beside herself with grief over what might have happened to her mother and sister."

"Hm, yes," Helviir said absently as he considered Moulin. "But I can't say that I've seen Mizumi nor Drumlin for quite some time. And they're certainly not here!" He let out a deep laugh. Jareth gave him a dry look but didn't say anything. "You don't believe me?"

"It's not as if I don't believe you, Helviir… It's just that you've give me no reason to believe you."

"Jareth, my friend!" Helviir said as he got up off his throne of sculls and other bones.

"I am not your friend," Jareth said, with ice in his voice.

"Ah, but we should be," Helviir said as he approached the Goblin King. "Trolls and Goblins are not all that different, are they not?" Jareth didn't say anything and watched as Helviir got closer and stopped when there was about two feet of space between them. Beside him, Moulin shivered slightly from fright, but stayed her ground. "Think of all of the things that we might be able to accomplish if we were to become allies, Jareth! With your cunning and the strength of my trolls, we will be able to crush the power from the Fae Queen!"

"That is my mother you're talking about," Jareth hissed. Helviir chuckled slightly.

"Whoops, completely forgot that you're related to all of the Fae rulers, aren't you?" Helviir pasued, thinking. "Well, the rulers in the kingdoms that matter, at any rate." Helviir took a step closer to Jareth, and Moulin ducked behind Jareth again. "Aren't you tired of being on the bottom of the royal hierarchy? What exactly do you think that your children will become? Is that all that you want for your children to become? The Goblin King?" Another step closer. "And if your oldest child becomes Goblin King, what, exactly, would happen to the rest of your children? Goblin Dukes? Goblin Lords?"

A smaller troll ran into the room in a complete panic. "Sir, sir!"

"What is it, Ordrim?" Helviir roared at the other troll. Ordrim shot Jareth and Moulin a worried look; Helviir heaved an annoyed sigh.

"If you will please excuse me for just one moment, Jareth," Helviir said.

"Yes, of course," Jareth said with a faint smile. Helviir swept aside a raged tapestry that hung over a passageway, and Ordrim followed his king inside of it. Jareth silently crossed the room to get closer to the passageway to listen in on the conversation.

"It's the prisoners," Ordrim whispered.

"What about them? What are they doing?"

"That's the thing: I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know!" Helviir roared it loud enough that Jareth probably would have been able to hear it all the way back in his own kingdom.

"Sir, please! Keep your voice down!" Ordrim hissed. Helviir made an odd, growling sound but didn't say anything. "They're just walking around together." Pause. "Well, Naba's flying, but you know what I mean. And for some reason, the ambient temperature of the prison has gone from 4 degrees to 29."

"Damn, I misunderestimated that wretched Elf," Helviir hissed. "Take twice as many guards as you think that you might need, because-" Before Helviir could finish his sentence, a massive explosion rocked the very foundation of the castle.

* * *

"And then you just exhale, and focus on breaking the crystal," Naba whispered. Sarah let out a low breath through her nose and threw her arms outward.

A second later, and the glass dome that had been their prison shattered outward. For a brief moment, everything seemed suspended in time. The millions of tiny glass pieces hung in the air and refracted light in every which way… light that has not been there a second ago.

And then, time caught up with Sarah, and the next thing she knew, she was sitting on a table, which seemed to be the correct size. Naba flew circles around the room. "We did it!" she exclaimed as she slid off from the table, careful of the glass shards on the floor.

"We're not out of the woods yet, I'm afraid," Naba said. "We've still got to get-" The only door into the room was thrown open, and two troll guards armed with overly large but dull-looking swords stormed into the room.

"Halt!" one of them ordered in a gruff voice as he pointed his sword at Sarah.

"Oh, I think that I've had enough of people telling me what to do to last a life-time," Sarah said with annoyance. "Especially somebody as ugly as you are." She threw her hand out towards the two guards, and they flew backwards and would have hit the wall had it not completely exploded with the force of Sarah's spell. "Whoops. I think that I over did it."

"Yes, you did," Naba agreed. "But there's no time to worry about that now! We might have had a couple of minutes before, but now everybody in the entire stupid kingdom will know that we've escaped!" Sarah quickly followed Naba out from the room and down so many spiral staircases that she began to feel exceptionally dizzy.

"Where is everybody?" Sarah asked after a while. "You'd think that we would have run into somebody by now."

"I would imagine that there are other, less-obvious ways to get into the room that we were in, so… I spoke too soon and you jinxed us," Naba said as an entire army (or so it seemed) came charging up the stairs with an array of crude weapons.

"Oh come on," Sarah said as she leaned against the wall with exhaustion.

"Do you trust me?"

"What?"

"Do you trust me?"

"I'm too exhausted right now to even attempt to do another spell, and if I go back up, then I'm sure to be imprisoned again. Or worse. So yeah, I don't think that I have any other option but to trust you right now."

"Then hang on." Naba flew out over the empty space that dropped down maybe ten stories. "JUMP!" Sarah jumped when the crow yelled, and she caught onto his tailfeathers. They dropped like a lead weight at first and Sarah let out a horrified scream. The trolls threw spears and rocks at the two of them, but they all seemed to just bounce off from them. Naba beat his wings hard and their descent slowed the closer that they got to the ground until Sarah's feet barely touched the stone floor and she let go of Naba. "Come on, this way!"

"Are you sure that this is the way?"

"No, but there's a bunch more guards coming from that way!" Naba exclaimed. Sarah saw the head of a couple of guards coming up from downstairs, and she quickly turned tail and ran in the opposite direction.

"Shit, I don't know how much longer that I can keep this up…" Sarah panted as she ran, and then slowed to a walk.

"Sarah?" a frantic voice called out.

"Jareth?" Sarah asked as she looked around in confusion.

"Sarah!" Jareth, followed by Moulin, burst out from behind a torn tapestry. He ran straight for her and wrapped her in a tight hug, which she was quick to return.

"Um, I hate to break up your little reunion, but…" Moulin said from behind Jareth. Jareth spun around and moved Sarah behind him in one easy movement. Then, he held his hand up, like he was holding a ball, and focused on the empty air above the palm of his hand.

"Jareth…" Moulin whispered as the troll guards got closer and closer.

"Jareth!" Sarah exclaimed. Jareth swung his arm back and acted like he was throwing a bowling ball. The guards all toppled over like pins, except for two who stood at the sides of the room.

"Damn, I hate 7-10 splits," Jareth complained as he spun around, grabbed Sarah's hand, and took off running. Moulin followed after them, and Naba flew over their heads. "I am really glad to see you, precious, but we'll have to save our reunion for a more appropriate time."

"I'm really glad to see you, too," Sarah said with a slight frown that Jareth missed.

"It looks like the quickest way to an inter-kingdom transportation site will be to jump out the window," Naba said.

"Easy for you to say, bird," Jareth said with a scowl.

"It's okay, Jareth," Sarah whispered. "I trust you." Jareth looked back over his shoulder and threw Sarah a tender smile.

"Good, because this is going to be scary as hell." He spun around again so that he was facing Sarah, pulled her into his chest, and ran backwards out through a stained glass window. Sarah screamed and clung onto Jareth as tight as she possibly could with her eyes screwed shut.

A second later, they stumbled over even ground. Sarah let out a couple of shaky breaths, and Jareth tenderly smoothed down Sarah's wild hair. Sarah opened her eyes and looked up into Jareth's face. She let out a weak laugh which quickly turned into tears.

"Precious, it's okay now," Jareth whispered as he ran his thumbs up and down her cheeks to wipe her tears away. "You're safe now. Everything's going to be okay." Sarah tilted her head back and lightly pressed her lips to Jareth's, but the innocent kiss soon became overly passionate and hungry.

Sarah pulled back and violently slapped Jareth. Pyrael and Amael, who had just come into the room with Moulin, winced at Sarah's violent turn of attack.

"I fucking hate you so damned much!" she screamed at him. "How the fuck could you just think that waltzing back into my life after everything that you put me and Toby through would end up okay?"

"Well, I guess she's got her memory back now," Pyrael said with a slight laugh.

* * *

It's not over quite yet, so don't worry!


	16. Chapter 16

Sarah heaved an exhausted sigh as she unlocked the door to her apartment. Before she could even get the door open, however, Mrs. Kelley's door opened.

"Sarah?" Ashley asked. "Oh my god! Where the fuck have you been for the past two months?!"

"I… uh… it's a long story," Sarah said as she lifted a hand to absently scratch the back of her neck.

"Oh my god, Sarah!" Ashley exclaimed.

"What?" Sarah asked rather hesitantly. Ashley raced over to Sarah and roughly grabbed the hand that was half-hidden amongst Sarah's long, dark hair. Jareth's engagement ring twinkled on Sarah's ring finger.

"Oh my god, Sarah!" Ashley said again. "You completely vanish for two whole months without telling anybody where you are. No note, no explanation, nothing! We've all been worried sick about you! And meanwhile, you've been out with Jared and you got engaged!"

"Well, not really," Sarah said hesitantly.

"What? What do you mean? A guy gives you an expensive-looking ring like that, and he obviously means that he's serious about you!" Ashley said with a giant, shit-eating grin on her face.

"I think that it's a family heirloom," Sarah said blankly.

"Wow, I didn't know that Jared came from that sort of money, though," Ashley said. She turned Sarah's hand this way and that in order to look the ring over completely.

"I think that you've got a lot of explaining to do, young lady," Mrs. Kelley said as she shuffled out into the hallway.

"Yes, but you guys are never going to believe me," Sarah said with a slight laugh and a roll of her eyes.

"I don't care if it takes all night; I want to know what the fuck happened to you!" Ashley exclaimed as she tugged Sarah into her apartment. "The last thing that I knew, you were having some sort of seizure in your apartment after you'd broken up with Jared. But then, bam! Jared just appeared, as if from nowhere, and he took you away. And that was two months ago, and I haven't heard anything about either of you since! Nobody has, and we've all been worried sick."

"You'd better come in, then, because I've got one hell of a story to tell you," Sarah said with a sigh as she pushed the door to her apartment open further. Ashley and Mrs. Kelley trailed in after her, and Ashley started to make tea while Sarah started her story.

"And then we both decided that maybe it would be for the best if I spent some time away from Jareth to sort through everything that happened," Sarah finished after about an hour. "After I got all of my memories back, I remembered how much of a jerk that Jareth was the first time that we met, and how completely creepy that it was that he just showed up here to try and get to me."

"I thought that you were all talking about finding 'the one'?" Ashley asked.

"I was, but when I said that, I didn't mean a creepy, narcissistic Goblin King! The guy sparkles more than a stripper pretending to be Tinker Bell!" Sarah exclaimed. Mrs. Kelley hid her laugh in her cup of tea.

"My dear, it is not up for us to decide what is best for you," Mrs. Kelley said after she'd gathered herself. "But I am curious to know about the fates of the Troll King as well as the other Fae queen and her daughters, your Elf friend, and that creature Mizumi made that looked like you."

"It's a lot easier to explain about Moppet and Naba than Mizumi and Helviir. Well, more Helviir than Mizumi," Sarah said slowly. "Naba came back with us from Helviir's castle to make sure that I was okay, but he left not to long after we got there. Jareth said that he wanted to help him since he'd helped me, but Naba declined, and said that he'd go back to his own people. As far as Moppet goes, Jareth told me that there were ways to put ablations back into the person that they were from. But, I don't know how I could do that to Moppet. She might have lived a rough life after Jareth discarded her as well, but it's still a life. I promised her that she would be able to remain at the castle, and I'm certain that Jareth will not kick her out again."

"And Helviir and Mizumi?" Ashley prompted.

"When I came here, Jareth had Helviir down in an oubliette," Sarah explained. "And Mizumi and Drumlin were still missing. Although, as Amael pointed out, the longer that they're gone, the more likely it is that at least Drumlin's dead."

"I am just glad that you're okay and that you escaped from the Troll King's castle unharmed," Mrs. Kelley said as she lay a gentle hand over Sarah's hand. "Oh, but this ring, though!" She held up Sarah's hand so that she could get a better look at it.

"I didn't want to come back with it. It's clearly very old— probably some family heirloom— and I was afraid that I'd lose it. But Jareth insisted. He said that it should help to remind me of what I have to decide upon."

"This is all very exciting," Mrs. Kelley said as she released Sarah's hand and stood up. "But I think that it's too much excitement for me. I'm going to go to bed now."

"Alright. Have a nice night, Mrs. Kelley," Sarah said, and Ashley echoed her friend's farewell.

"I was so worried about you," Ashley said once the elderly woman had left. "I kept calling the school to see if you'd come back yet, but they only just told me that you'd called in a leave of absence. And your parents and Toby were no help at all, either! They kept saying that you'd be back soon and that you were an adult and capable of taking care of yourself. Well, that might have been okay the first week after you'd left, but not two months later! And they just wouldn't listen to me when I tried to explain that you'd had some sort of fit and this guy randomly appeared and took you away. They said that you didn't have seizures, and that I was being silly."

"I think that Jareth mentioned saying something to my family and the school, but that sounds more like a spell to me," Sarah said with a frown. "Why wouldn't my parents worry about me?"

"But, I guess that there's no point in worrying about it now that you're back," Ashley said slowly. "I should probably go now; you've clearly got a lot to think about."

"Yes," Sarah said hesitantly. Ashley showed herself out, and Sarah just sat on the sofa and stared blankly out the window until it got too dark to see.

* * *

"Ms. Williams! You're back!"

"We were all really worried about you, but the school wouldn't let us file a missing person's report!"

"And that sub really stunk up the entire school! We were about ready to do a walk-out if she stayed for one more period!"

"I'm really sorry that I was gone for so long, everybody," Sarah said to the teenagers who had gathered around her. "And I'm sorry that the sub that the district hired wasn't great. But I hope that you've been working on the musical?"

"We have!" several of the students said at once.

"But the sub was no help, and kept wanting for us to do a bunch of stuff that didn't really have anything to do with the play at all. It was one of the reasons why we were about to stage a walk-out."

"But we ignored pretty much anything that she had to say because we knew that you'd want for us to focus on the musical."

"Good, I'm glad," Sarah said with a faint smile.

"Oh my gosh, Ms. Williams!"

"What?" Sarah looked sharply over to the young girl whose exclamation had carried over the chatter of the other students.

"Is that an engagement ring?" The room was suddenly silent and all focus was on Sarah's left hand.

"I suppose that it is, but I haven't said yes yet."

"Aw, why not?" several of the girls asked at once.

"It's… complicated and hard to explain. A lot happened to me while I was away."

"I'll bet I know what!" one of the boys said, and he and his friend exchanged a high-five. Sarah scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"I mean besides that," Sarah said dryly.

"Well, can you try to explain to us?" said the girl who'd noticed the engagement ring.

"Um… I guess?" Sarah tried her best to edit the story that would be appropriate for her students to hear. But she made Jareth a duke from England, since she had no desire to tell her students about the Underworld. Knowing how teenagers worked, they would wish their parents or teachers away to Jareth!

"Ms. Williams, I honestly don't see what the big deal is," one of her female students said. "People do hurtful stuff to other people all the time. But it seems to me like Jared is trying to put the past behind him because he loves you." Sarah looked down at her hands, but twisted her left hand into a fist with her knuckles turned outward so that she didn't have to look at the ring.

The bell rang, and the students got up to go to their next class. "It doesn't really matter what you choose to do, Mrs. Williams," said one of her students as she passed Sarah. "But you should do what makes you happy."

"Alright! There's been more than enough dawdling while I was gone! Tomorrow, be prepared to get back to work on the musical!" Sarah exclaimed as everybody trailed from the drama room. There were a few grumbles, but Sarah expected that. After all, what kind of teenager didn't complain about literally everything?

* * *

"Oh, Sarah! I'm glad that you're back because there's a package for you!" Mrs. Kelley said as soon as Sarah had opened her door. "I signed for it, like I normally do." She vanished inside her apartment for a brief moment before she came back out with a smallish box.

"Thanks, Mrs. Kelley."

"Hope you have a nice evening, dear."

Sarah gave the elderly woman a small wave before they both went into their separate apartments. Sarah dropped her bag on the sofa and then carried the box into the kitchen, where she opened it with a kitchen knife. Inside, was a large stack of papers, and the top paper read "The Princess's Return by Jared Garfied" in type-writer font, and there was some crude concept art.

Sarah heaved an annoyed sigh, but she pulled the manuscript out from the box and flipped the cover page over to find a hand-written note on the back.

_To my dearest Sarah,_

_I know that I promised that I would leave you in peace to come to a decision on your own, but I wrote this for you._

_Well, everything spanning ten years ago that I wrote, I wrote for you in the hopes that you would somehow stumble across it and remember me. But, I don't think that that worked out very well._

_But this one, I wrote specifically for your eyes only. I don't really have any intentions of publishing it, but I suppose that you'll see why soon enough._

_I await your call, as I am completely miserable without you._

_Jareth_

Sarah took the manuscript over to the chair by the window and started to read.

* * *

Sarah lay on her side in bed, and a moment later, the mattress jolted a little as Jareth climbed into bed next to her. He lay on his side and wrapped his arms around her, and Sarah didn't say anything until they'd gotten settled.

"I finished your novel," she said softly.

"I figured that that's why you called for me," Jareth whispered against the side of her neck. He pressed a light kiss to her neck, and then another, and another. "I missed you," he whispered after a while.

"I missed you, too," Sarah replied quickly. She laced her fingers through the hand that Jareth had casually draped over her waist. "Your stupid book made me cry, and dammit! It fucking happened to me and I knew that perfectly well and I still fucking cried!"

"I'm sorry, precious," Jareth replied. He ran his thumb over Sarah's fingers. "But I hope that reading it has given you some insights as to what was going through my mind."

"Yes."

"And? Did it help you to come to a decision?"

"Yes. That and some sage advice from some of my students."

"Your students are all fourteen," Jareth said with a roll of his eyes that Sarah missed since he was behind her. "I don't think that they're exactly qualified to be giving out advice, about love or anything else."

"No, but they're also not quite burned out on love quite yet, either," Sarah said. "Their lives are still full of hope that they'll become the next Leonardo DiCaprio or Kate Winslet and marry Brad Pitt or whatever. They still see the world as being in black and white, not in shades of grey like adults tend to do."

"Okay, but what have you decided then?" Jareth asked. "Judging by the fact that you have yet to kick me out of your bed and haven't thrown my ring back at me, I'm guessing that it's good news?" Sarah twisted around in Jareth's arms and awkward kissed Jareth on the mouth. Jareth easily moved the two of them until he was lying on his back and Sarah lying on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she pressed herself into him, and for a moment, they were content to just lie like that, occasionally exchanging sweet kisses.

Then, Jareth reached down and tugged on the hem of Sarah's blouse. She pushed herself up and raised her arms so that Jareth could pull it off. Once he'd discarded it over the side of the bed, Jareth reached behind and undid the clasp for Sarah's bra as well. As soon as he pulled it off from her arms, Jareth flipped them over so that Sarah was lying on the bed on her back.

Jareth knelt above her and started to kiss her jaw, her neck, her collar bone, down to her breasts. The last time that they'd been together, the night of Amael's ball, they had been frantic and hurried. But now, both of them seemed content to take their time. Jareth ran his tongue in a slow, lazy circle around Sarah's right areola, and then started to gently suck on her nipple.

Sarah let out a contented sigh and ran her fingers through Jareth's hair. He lifted a finger to Sarah's lips, and she took it into her mouth and started to roll the digit over in her mouth with her tongue. With his other hand, Jareth started to roll Sarah's left nipple between his thumb and forefinger until it was hard.

With one final flick of his tongue, Jareth pulled away from Sarah's breasts and sat up to look at her. She released his finger with a wet pop, and Jareth leaned over and gave her a lingering kiss on the lips. He didn't pull away until Sarah started to pull on his shirt, and then he let her remove the frilly article of clothing. Sarah trailed her hands down the hollow of Jareth's throat, and where ever her fingers went, her lips were quick to follow with gentle kisses.

When her hands reached the top of Jareth's pants, her fingers made quick work of the buttons there and pushed them down enough for his erect cock to spring free. She grasped it with her hands and pressed a light kiss to the tip, all while she looked Jareth in the eye. Jareth let out a throaty groan and pulled Sarah back up to meet his lips for another kiss.

"Sarah, I need you," Jareth whispered against her lips. Sarah reached down and undid the button and zip on her pants, and Jareth was quick to pull her jeans and panties down. Then, he pulled off his boots and pulled his pants off the rest of the way before he grabbed Sarah and pulled her on top of him.

She sunk down onto his length with a low moan and didn't break eye contact from Jareth as she slowly started to rock back and forth on top of him. Jareth wrapped Sarah's hair around his wrist and yanked her head back so that he could kiss the side of her throat.

The room was filled with the sounds of soft moans and the gentle sound of flesh against flesh. "Jareth…" Sarah moaned softly.

"Min dyrebare, min dronning, min Sarah, (1)" Jareth whispered as he pressed his face into Sarah's breasts. Sarah paused in her slow movements and looked down at Jareth, who returned her stare. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her waist. "Vennligst si at du vil bli min, (2)" Jareth whispered.

Sarah frowned as she tried to puzzle over what Jareth had just said. Finally, she simply said, "Ja." Jareth cupped Sarah's face between his hands and gave her a passionate, lingering kiss as he started to move within her again.

After several more minutes of slow lovemaking, Jareth and Sarah both reached their climaxes together; their voices, like their bodies, were entwined around one another so much that it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.

Sarah's head rested on Jareth's chest, and she closed her eyes as she listened to his heart beat slow after his orgasm. Jareth had his arms wrapped lazily around Sarah, and his hand gently stroked her dark hair. "I didn't know that I could either speak nor understand Norwegian," Sarah said after a moment.

"I think that it's part of the magic," Jareth whispered and then he pressed a lingering kiss onto her forehead.

"After my brief bout of magic in Helviir's castle, I haven't been able to do much," Sarah said.

"I think that you were only able to do that because you were so scared for your life," Jareth said. "Not so much the breaking out from the crystal, but blowing a hole in the wall of the tower."

"I think that I wouldn't mind so much if I didn't have to do much magic anymore," Sarah whispered. She started to trace random patterns on Jareth's chest with the tip of her finger.

"I'm perfectly happy to want to do magic for you, precious," Jareth said. He pulled his hand away from Sarah's back and presented her with a red rose. "I love you," he said as Sarah accepted the flower.

"I love you, too," Sarah whispered. She looked down at the red flower in her hand and then looked up to meet Jareth's gaze. He gave her a giant, cocky grin.

"Does this mean that you're saying yes?"

"Yes."

* * *

1) Min dyrebare, min dronning, min Sarah. = My precious, my queen, my Sarah.

2) Vennligst si at du vil bli min. = Please say that you'll be mine.

As usual, these are only thanks to google translate. If this is somehow wrong, please let me know at once so that I might fix it!


	17. Epilogue

"No no no! That doesn't go over there; it goes over there!" Pyrael roared at the goblins.

"We're so sorry Miss Pyrael! Please do not kick us out the window again!" the goblins wailed as they picked up the giant ice sculpture and started to move it to where Pyrael had indicated it should go. Pyrael heaved a giant sigh of annoyance and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"You know, I'm actually glad that I let you and Amael talk me into you guys taking care of all of the wedding plans," Sarah said as she walked calmly into the grand hall of Jareth's castle.

No, our castle, Sarah mentally reminded herself.

"That's what sisters are for, Sarah!" Pyrael said with a bright smile. "Taking care of stuff like this. I helped all of my other sisters plan their weddings." Pyrael gave Sarah a skeptical look. "Are you sure that you really want to go through with this? And I mean, really, REALLY sure? There's still a few more hours left until the wedding!"

"Yes, I'm sure," Sarah said with a quiet laugh. "Have you seen Mizumi?"

"Not since your final fitting this morning," Pyrael said with a slight frown. "She knows that if she tries to leave, Jareth is only going to throw her into an oubliette, too."

"I don't think that that's going to try and stop her," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes as she sat down on one of the decorated chairs that would be used in the morning for the wedding reception.

"Speaking of dress fittings, this is the third one that you've had this week, and they've had to let the dress out on all three occasions. Is there something that you're not telling me?"

Sarah gave her soon-to-be sister-in-law a coy smile. "Maybe," she said evenly, and wouldn't answer any more questions on the matter, no matter how much Pyrael bothered her.

"Ah, there you are, Sarah!" Jareth said as he swept into the room. Mizumi trailed after him. Unlike a few months earlier, the once majestic queen was now dressed in a simple dress, apron, and kerchief that covered her blue hair. "Mizumi? Could you help Pyrael set up the reception hall? I'd like to have a word with my fiancee."

"Yes, of course, your majesty," Mizumi said softly. She sunk into a curtsy and didn't stand up again until Jareth and Sarah had left the hall.

"How are you?" Jareth asked softly once they were alone. He reached up and tucked a strand of hair that had escaped Sarah's braid behind her ear, and his fingers lingered against her cheek.

"I'm fine," Sarah said with some annoyance.

"I hope that you've taken what Sielel said to heart and you're-"

"I'm fine!" Sarah said with more venom in her voice.

"I know, but I've already lost you twice already," Jareth whispered. "It would kill me if I lost you again. For good this time."

"Jareth, women have been-" Sarah quickly cut off when she saw Moulin approaching them from the other end of the hall.

"Sarah, Myla wants to do another fitting," Moulin said.

"Another one?" Jareth said with a frown. "If they can't get-" He broke off when Sarah put a light hand on his elbow.

"No, it's okay, Jareth. I had another fitting this morning. I'm getting really fat."

"You aren't fat!" Jareth quickly exclaimed. "You're-" Sarah cut him off with a kiss.

"Then I suppose that it's a good thing that we're getting married in the morning, isn't it?" she whispered against his lips. Jareth kissed her again before they both pulled away.

"Speaking of things that must be done, I do believe that I've forgotten Helviir's dinner."

"You really need to find somebody who isn't afraid of him to do that for you," Sarah said with a frown.

"After he maimed the third goblin, I gave up," Jareth said with a deep-set scowl.

"Well, I don't want him to hurt you, too!" Sarah protested.

"Precious, I am not going anywhere." Jareth leaned in and kissed Sarah again.

"Good, because I love you too much to let you leave me."

"After I waited for ten years for you to give me a loophole to come see you in the Aboveworld, you'd better believe that I'd never leave you!"

* * *

Thank you to all who read my humble story; your reviews and favorites really meant a lot to me. Much love and until next time, Artemis.


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